


Danti Shameless AU

by DaisyDuke701



Category: Septiplier - Fandom
Genre: Antisepticeye Sean McLoughlin, Darkiplier Mark Fischbach, M/M, Septiplier AWAY!, Shameless AU, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, slight angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-03-12 05:09:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 33,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13540359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaisyDuke701/pseuds/DaisyDuke701
Summary: Shameless AUAntixDarkAnti grew up on a small island called Septic... well the South side of it. His parents left him alone at a young age to fend for himself along with his little siblings, Sean, Jack, and Fiona. Until the day he found out his soulmate was a King.





	1. Chapter 1

“Anti! Jack and Sean still aren’t up yet.” Anti’s younger sister Fiona said as she walked down into the kitchen. Her long brown wavy hair bouncing around her face as she jogged the last few steps of the worn down wooden stairs.

“Lazy, fucks.” Anti glared at the wall while he slammed the last two pieces of toast into the toaster. 

He did a 180 and stormed upstairs, his heavy footsteps rang throughout the house. “Boys! If you don’t get your arses up in the next 5 minutes, I will come up there and toss you out the window into the neighbor’s pool!”

A smile graced his features when he heard the sound of a crash, quickly followed by scrambling feet. That threat worked everytime ever since Anti held one of them out the window on a winter morning -their Crime, lying to him about their report card. 

Jack and Sean were identical twins, with almost the same personalities. Both very social and funny. Jack was the louder one, always running or jumping somewhere. He was very energetic, even for an 11 year old. Meanwhile Sean was the smarter of the two. His 3.5 GPA always made Anti proud, but he knew if the boys got into some elaborate plan it was usually Sean that designed it.

Anti loved them both, but sometimes (most of the time) they were a pain in the neck. Like the time Jack found an old gun thrown out on the side of the road, or when Sean hacked into the computer system at school to change their test scores.

When Anti re-entered the kitchen, he saw Fiona searching the fridge.

“We’re out of milk.”

“Pick some up on your way home from  _ work _ .” Anti said rather harshly as he pushed past her to get the butter on the top shelf of the fridge door, not really caring when he bumped into her arm.

Fiona rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her flat chest. 

“You know a little support would be nice.”

“You quit your  _ job _ and go back to highschool, and I’ll buy you all the milk you want.” Anti grabbed the toast as soon as it popped out and put them on a plate.

“I’m 18 now, you can’t keep treating me like a little kid anymore.”

“You are a high school drop out that thinks she can make enough money to support herself stripping and doing god knows what at that…  _ whore house. _ ” Anti picked up the two plates of toast and walked over to the kitchen table, the only decent piece of furniture in the kitchen.

“It’s not a whore house.” Fiona defended herself, following Anti close behind. “It’s a bar, and Im not stripping. I’m just waiting on tables and-”

Anti slammed the two plates of toast on the table and turned to look at Fiona.

“Don’t try and pull wool over my eyes. I  _ worked  _ there. I know how it works -and how the place makes most of its money.” his voice got dark.

“It’s  _ changed _ .” Fiona grew persistent. “ It’s not the same run down-”

“Just because it’s changed owners doesn’t mean the main…  _ business _ of the place has changed.” Anti walked past Fiona and grabbed a towel. He started wiping down the old white tile kitchen counters.

“Well you never graduated from high school either.” Fiona knew that it was a low blow for Anti, but she didn’t care in the moment.

Anti stopped wiping off the counters and looked down at his filthy, black tennis shoes. “And you think I’m proud of that.” Anti didn’t turn around to face her. 

“Jack and Sean are going to come downstairs at any moment. I want this to stay between us.”

“Whatever, I’m heading out.” Fiona gave up. She quickly walked over to grabbed her purse and jacket from the door. 

“Are you at least going to give me the phone.”

Anti grabbed the flip phone from on top of the fridge and tossed it to Fiona.

“Thanks.” Fiona said with no emotion and walked out the back door.

Anti sighed, it’s been only two months since Fiona dropped out and he could feel the space between them get bigger and bigger. He didn’t know what to do. For a brief moment he thought about kicking her out, but he knew if he did that then he would never see her again. She was just as thick headed as he was.

Anti needed a drink. He looked into the fridge and saw that the gallon of orange juice was almost empty and decided to give Jack and Sean the last of it, he’d just swipe a candy bar from work.

Jack and Sean came down the stairs pushing and shoving each other playfully.

“No rough housing, unless you two want to pay for the next hole in the wall.” Anti barked at them. The two boys just laughed it off and sat at the table to eat their toast.

“Any milk left?” Jack asked mouth full of toast.

“No, it’s either orange juice or water. Pick before I choose for you.” Anti said as he grabbed two glasses from the cabinet.

“I want orange juice!” Sean yelled.

“Diddo!” Jack laughed, food spilling from his mouth.

“That’s so nasty.” Sean winned and scooted his chair away from Jack.

“You’re nasty.” Jack stuck his tongue out.

“Quit it you two.” Anti set the two glasses of orange juice on the table. “Sean stop playing with your food, your 11. Most 11 year olds know how to eat.”

“Whatever, hey Anti. Can I dye my hair green like yours?” Jack asked, running a hand through his short hair, his light blue eyes twinkled with excitement.

Anti couldn’t exactly say no. “Maybe for your 12th birthday. Now hurry up before your late to school.” he walked to the family room and grabbed the 2 back packs that were scattered on the floor.

“You two better be done by the time I gather your shit!” Anti yelled to the two boys in the other room. He looked around the coffee table and saw a pile of crayons and pencils.

Anti almost rolled his eyes. Boys will be boys. He got on his hands and knees and started picking up each bit of crayon, even the broken bits could still be used and if not Anti decided he’d just take some from the kids menu from his job.

“We’re done!” Jack called out from the kitchen.

Damn, they were fast eaters.

“Put ya’ dishes in the sink, and get your backpacks!” Anti got up, deciding that the floor was clean enough for now.

Sean and Jack ran out of the kitchen and in a split second were out the door, backpacks on their shoulders.

“Bye Anti!” Anti heard right before the door was almost slammed shut.

“Damn, I wish I had that much energy.” he muttered to himself. He looked at the clock and sighed. Late for work again, oh well. If he got fired he could always get a job working for Kevin at the bar. He knew Kevin would take him in until he got another job.

Anti changed into his work uniform, a ridiculous looking bright red shirt and a hat with a corn dog on it, but working at a roller skating rink had its benefits. As long as he didn’t get caught by his boss, he could smoke inside. Whenever he re-filled all the candy machines or the claw machine, he’d swipe a few granola bars, or a couple plushies for Jack and Sean.

While Anti was walking to work, he noticed that something was different… he wasn’t sure why. He could always sense when something big was going to happen, it was almost like he had a third eye or something.

When he got to the roller skating rink, he knew something was definitely off when Mandy his co-worker actually had a smile on her face. She looked like she was texting someone. Her dyed red hair was straight today and her dark make up seemed a little lighter than usual.

“Well your in a good mood today.” Anti said as he walked by her to get to his pack of cigarettes he kept hidden behind the rack of skates.

“Well, something big happened last night.” Her voice even seemed to be way more upbeat that usual.

‘I knew something happened.’ Anti thought as he lit his cigarette in the back corner.

“I found my soulmate.” Mandy said, her red lips curled into a smirk, but Anti knew that was just how she smiled.

Anti nearly dropped his lighter.

“What…” He was in shock. His dark green eyes met her lighter greenish blue eyes.

“His names Philip, but he goes by Lip for short.” Mandy grabbed the air freshener from a shelf and started spraying the old skates on the rack. “He’s 5 foot 7, got these dark blue eyes, brown hair…” her voice trailed off as she was describing him.

“How’d you guys meet?” Anti asked, blowing a stream of smoke from his chapped lips.

“My brothers were robbing that little 7-11 store by the funeral place and they dragged me along to be the getaway driver-”

“Of course.” Anti chuckled. Mandy’s brothers always knew how to get into some serious trouble. “Oh, by the way. Did you get me my stuff.”

“Yeah yeah, just let me finish my story.” Mandy swung her body around the rack so that she was right in front of Anti.

“So, apparently Lip’s brother was working at the 7-11, and Lip was in the store to buy some cigarettes when my brother came in guns blazing-”

“As usual.” Anti smirked when Mandy gave him a very annoyed look. He loved annoying her sometimes.

“Are you going to let me finish my story, or are you going to continue being a dick.”

“Continue, and be quick. I gotta go out and switch the open sign on.” Anti put his box of cigarettes back behind the rack.

“Well, it was taking to long. So I got out of the car to see what the hold up was, and Lip actually managed to get Mickey in a choke hold and they were wrestling on the ground when I stepped in. It was like everything just stopped…” Mandy’s eyes were so stary as she stared off into the distant. “I showed him my soulmate mark on my wrist, and funny enough he had the same…” her voice trailed off again. She seemed to be in some sort of love struck trance… _ again _ .

“Good, now I don’t have to hear you talk about soulmates every single day.” Anti walked out to turn on the open sign.

“Hey! I don’t talk about soulmates all the time.” Mandy crossed her arms and leaned forward on the front counter.

“When we first met, you demanded that I show you my soulmate mark because you just  _ had _ to be sure.” Anti rolled his eyes and flicked the sign on.

“Well that was last year, and now I know who my soulmate is so I wont bug you about meeting your friends again.”

“All of my friends have already found their soulmates. Meeting them wouldn’t have done you any good.” A group of people walked in laughing and jumping on each other.

“So why haven’t you?” Mandy asked.

Anti didn’t respond, he just walked over to help the new customers find the right size skates. It was just a bunch of kids who skipped school because the skating rink was almost always empty in the mornings. It was the perfect time to have the place to themselves.

He avoided Mandy the best he could his entire shift, making sure to refill the vending machines and clean the arcade area extra well. He swiped some old chip bags and a candy bar for himself before locking up the side of the machine. He was happy he didn’t have any late shifts, the place was always packed with kids or teenagers that loved to make out in the corners whenever given the chance.

“Are you going to answer my question.”

He silently groaned when he heard Mandy’s voice behind him.

“I’m not looking for my soulmate. I can’t right now.” Anti turned around to face Mandy. Mandy rolled her eyes.

“Come on, don’t you want to find the one you're destined to be with?”

“No, I don’t want my soulmate to see me as a guy who works at an old skating rink, taking care of 3 kids, going nowhere with his life.” Anti leaned back against the vending machine.

“Come on… your hot.” Mandy took off his red corn dog hat and let his dark green hair flop down. “And technically you don’t have 3 kids, just 3 siblings that you take care of… and Fiona’s not a kid anymore.” Anti still didn’t smile. He knew Mandy was just trying to make him feel better, but he only felt slightly worse and the thought of Fiona.

Mandy sighed. “I got the stuff that you wanted… it’s in my locker.” she walked off into the back where all the employees kept their things, Anti followed close behind.

Mandy stopped at her locker and got the key from her pocket. She started humming a familiar tune that Anti knew so well. He noticed the next group of workers clock in and head out to the front.

_ “Oh, there ain't no rest for the wicked, money don’t grow on trees… _ ” her voice was very quiet, but Anti smirked and sang the next line.

“ _ I’ve got bills to pay, I got mouths to feed. There ain’t nothing in this world for free. _ ”

Mandy turned and smiled, they started singing together.

_ I know I can’t slow down _

_ I can’t hold back _

_ Though you know I wish I could, _

_ Oh no there ain’t no rest for the wicked, _

_ Till’ we close our eyes for good _

They both had a good laugh. “See, I knew we were friends for a reason.” Mandy said as she took a plastic grocery bag from her locker and handed it to Anti.

“You forgot the pack of cigarettes…” Anti said as he looked through the bag of stolen goods. Most of it was normal groceries; pop tarts, hot pockets, cheese, juice boxes, bread, and a bag of hot cheetos.

“I didn’t.” Mandy smirked and grabbed a half empty open pack from her pocket. “I had to take my 50%.”

“Bitch.” Anti laughed and took it anyways. “Next time the meat truck comes by, I’ll be sure to call you.”

“Or next time Jack shoots down something. You know how much Mickey loves meat.”

“Yeah yeah, just don’t get caught. I know how careless Mickey can be.” Anti said and walked out the back door after he clocked out to go home.

“Stay wicked!” Mandy yelled at Anti as he left.

Anti walked out into the cold. Fall just started, but for some reason it felt like winter already. Not that Anti minded at all, he loved the cold weather.

As he was walking home, a strange feeling came over his senses. He stopped for a moment to think.

‘That’s odd… is something else going to happen today…’ He hoped not. The less surprises in his life the better. Better be safe than sorry. After he dropped the groceries at home, he walked over to Jack and Sean’s school to walk them home. Just in case.

He waited across the street for them to get out. He wished that he changed out of his work clothes and into something that looked a little more decent that a red shirt with a large mustard stain in the front, with tan cargo pants, but whatever. What’s done is done.

When the bell rang he saw that Jack and Sean were the first ones out the door. Anti made his way across the street, careful not to get hit by the oncoming moms picking their kids up.

“How was school?” He asked them.

“Boring.” Jack picked up a stick and started picking the sidewalk as they walked to their house.

“Well actually everyone’s excited about King Dark.”

“What he do?” Anti rolled his eyes. King Dark was the name of the ruler of the richest country in the world, Iplier. It definitely beat Septic by a landslide. Septic was a small island compared to Iplier. The King and Queen died from an assassination a couple years ago, the people responsible where both shot in the head in a public execution that was broadcasted worldwide. Anti stayed up until 3 in the morning just to watch. He couldn’t imagine having that kind of power.

Their oldest son, who was about as old as Anti, took the throne. His name was Dark and Anti didn’t know much about him, only that he liked to keep to himself unlike his little brother, Mark who seemed to be on every social media page and game show on the air. That much Anti knew about  _ the _ most powerful royal family in the world.

“A lot of people are saying that he doesn’t have a soulmate mark.” Sean said looking down. “Is that even possible?”

“Yes, but you don’t have to worry about that okay?” Anti stopped and got down to be level with Sean.

“You have a soul mate mark right here.” Anti grabbed Sean’s hand and pointed to the mark on his palm. It was a dark brown mark in the shape of a flower, it resembled a henna tattoo.

“That means that someone out there waiting for you.” Anti didn’t know how else to explain it because he wasn’t good with all this “soulmate” and destiny talk. Especially when he hardly believed any of that crap.

“Told you!” Jack said very snotty.

“Shut up!” Sean glared at his brother, but quickly dropped it when he had another question. “Why haven’t you met your soulmate yet?”

Anti didn’t know how to respond. He had a black soulmate mark on his back that he never showed anyone except his siblings, Mandy, and Kevin. It looked like a tribal tattoo going down his spine, it was actually pretty big, it took up about half of his back.

“Sometimes it takes a little longer, and besides I don’t want to meet my soulmate right now.” Anti continued walking, but Sean wouldn’t budge.

“Why?”

Anti stopped, but avoided the question with ease. “Why are you asking so many questions. Your 11, you don’t need to worry about soulmates right now. Come on, I got your favorite pop tarts waiting at home.”

“Really?!” Sean beamed with happiness. Jack tossed the stick and jumped on Anti. “You got the chocolate ones too right!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, whoever gets their homework done first can have two.” Anti said putting Jack back on the sidewalk.

“Hell Yeah! I’m way smarter than you!” Sean had a victory smile on his face.

“But I’m faster than you!” Jack said and took off like a bullet. Sean started running to catch up. “No fair!” he whined.

Anti didn’t care, they were only a few blocks away from their house anyway. Yeah, they lived in a bad neighborhood, but most of the people here had a sense of community and knew Sean and Jack, they also knew that if anything happened to them that he’d call Mandy and Mickey for an alibi before stabbing whoever messes with his little bros.

Right before he walked inside his house he noticed a big delivery truck driving over the railroad a few streets down. He quickly called Mandy.

“Hey, a big delivery truck just went over the rail road… ok, I want a cut of whatever you guys get.” He hung up before he got an answer from Mandy.

When he walked inside the house and smiled when he saw Sean and Jack doing their homework.

“Here yeah go.” He tossed the box of poptarts in between them. Sean and Jack started wrestling about on the carpet fighting for the box. 

Anti did a quick walk around the house to make sure everything was in it’s right place. The baseball bat was by the stairs in case of emergencies, the knife Anti kept under his pillow was still there, and the boy’s room was still a mess; but the strange feeling that Anti had was still there.

Fiona

There must be something wrong with Fiona. Anti changed out of his work clothes and got his long black leather jacket.

“Boy’s, take 20$ out of the squirrel fund and order pizza for dinner. If I see anything else missing I’ll toss you in the neighbor’s pool at midnight. Don’t forget to lock all the doors and the windows, don’t open them unless it’s Kevin or Veronica-”

“We know we know.” Jack flopped his small body on the couch and turned on the small TV they had.

Anti paused before he opened the door. “Did you finish your homework?”

“Yeah…” Jack replied, but Anti knew he was lying. Anti did a quick 180 and stomped to the couch that Jack was lounging on. Jack immediately got off the couch.

“Okay, okay, I’m going to finish it.”

“You better, or I’ll-”

“Toss me into the neighbor’s pool…” Jack looked down with a frown. “I know…”

Anti walked over and pulled Jack into a hug. “I won’t be back for a long time.”

“Your looking for Fiona, I know.” Jack wrapped his small arms around Anti. “You guys have been arguing a lot, please don’t make her leave…” his voice was a little shaky.

“I can’t make any promises ok? But for now she belongs at home, where’s your brother?”

“Upstairs, I don’t know what he’s doing.”

“Keep an eye on him okay? I’m trusting you.” Anti ruffled Jack’s light brown hair and walked out.

He decided that he’d check the bar, maybe chat with Kevin a bit. It was only 5:00, still really early.

When he got to the bar he was greeted by most of the old dudes in the front that he’s known ever since he could remember.

“Still as silent as ever.” one of them made the comment as he ignored them and went straight over to kevin who was bartending.

“So, how’s the Roller Rink doing?” Kevin asked as he poured a large glass of beer. He seemed to be in a good mood too.

“Same old, same old. Though Mandy finally found her soulmate.”

Kevin’s face turned from happy to shocked, “Really… Mandy Milkovitch, Mickey’s sister?” Anti nodded and smirked.

“The one and only.”

“Wow…” Kevin served the glass to the guy next to Anti and stopped for a minute. “Who’s the unlucky fellow.”

Anti just laughed, he knew that Kevin was only teasing. “Some guy named Lip.”

“Ah, Philip. I know that kid. Smartest guy I know. Graduated top of his class.” Kevin grabbed a dirty towel from under the counter and started cleaning some of the glasses.

“Good, maybe he’ll get Mandy to at least graduate high school. We know Mickey’s not going back to school.” Anti rested his head in his hands. “If only there was a way to get Fiona to go back to school…”

“You just have to give her space. Once she realizes that she won’t be happy working there, she’ll quit and find something else to do with her life.”

“I want her to go back to school.”

“You can get a stable job without a high school diploma. I never graduated high school.”

Anti sighed “Your different, your dad left you a bar when he died. You never needed to go out looking for a job, and you’ve been working here since you were 13.”

“I guess you're right, I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have this place. You want a beer? On the house?” Kevin asked.

“What’s the occasion? You never give out free beer unless somethin’s happening?” Anti raised his eyebrow slightly, especially when the grin came back on Kevin’s face.

“Well let’s just say… I have an announcement to make.” Kevin climbed on top of the counter and stood up.

“Hey everybody I’ve got something to say!” He shouted at the top of his lungs, gathering everyone in the bar’s attention.

“Veronica’s pregnant! I’m gonna be a daddy!”

The bar erupted in cheers and clapping.

“Everyone gets a free drink!”

The cheers got a lot louder. Anti smiled, of course free alcohol would make anyone excited. Especially in this part of town. The people here never change.

“Congrats Kevin, how far along is Veronica?” the guy next to Anti asked as Kevin poured him another glass of beer.

“Oh, we just found out last night; but I’m just so happy.” Kevin looked over towards Anti, smile as wide as ever. Anti just gave him a nod.

“You'll be a great dad Kevin.” He said.

“And when you find your soulmate, our kids will have play dates.” Kevin passed a tall glass of beer over to Anti.

“Yeah right.” Anti said right before he started chugging the large glass of alcohol.

“Come on, don’t give up man. Your only 21, you’ve got a lot of time to find them.”

“I don’t want them to ever find me.” Anti muttered, but it was to quiet for anyone to hear.

“What was that?” Kevin asked, getting as many cups as he could from behind the bar to give out to the newly energised crowd of customers.

“Nothing.” Anti finished his drink and got up. “I need to go look for Fiona. Bye! Tell Veronica I said congratulations.”

He left before Kevin could say anything. It was still light outside, but not by much. The sun was setting fast. Anti walked along the sidewalk and started thinking about what Kevin was saying. Maybe he should just let Fiona have her space. It wasn’t like he was their dad or anything.

He wanted to punch a wall at the thought of their deadbeat father. He was probably at some crack house in Canada, sleeping in his own shit. Serves him right for abandoning them and only coming when he was in need of some cash or alcohol.

Their mother wasn’t any better. She was always high on something. Only stopping by for brief moments to drop off another kid for Anti to take care of, He wasn’t even sure if Sean and Anti were his father’s sons, but that didn’t matter. They were still his brothers, and they came first.

The feeling came back, and Anti stopped a moment. Was something else going to happen today? It was already pretty eventful, with him finding out that Mandy found her soulmate and Veronica expecting a baby; but his gut was telling him that something else was going to happen.

He needed to find Fiona.

He walked everywhere except the one place he knew she would be. Maybe he was still trying to deny that she actually had a job at the town’s whore house. He didn’t want to see his little sister getting felt up at every turn, serving the disgusting people that were there. 

After hours of just walking around, he finally just decided to go home, it was almost 10:00 and he had work tomorrow. 

When he walked inside the house, it was dark and quiet except for some laughing upstairs.

“Boys.” Anti said to himself as he rolled his eyes and went up the old steps, he didn’t bother trying to be quiet. He knew as soon as they heard him come up that they would be pretending to sleep in their beds.

He walked down the hall to the last door and quietly opened it. Sure enough, Sean and Anti were in their beds pretending to be asleep. He walked over quietly and tucked them both in. Even though he knew they were still awake he didn’t say anything and walked out. This way he could show them both that he cared about them and still remain the “alpha” of the house with his tough type of love.

He walked over to Fiona’s room and saw that it was empty. She was still out. He sighed and went downstairs to grab a beer before crashing on the couch. Their house had a total of 2 bedrooms so he just slept on the couch and kept his clothes in a dresser under the stairs.

He turned on the TV and did his best to relax, but it was really hard when the weird feeling got stronger.

The backdoor opened quietly. He knew it was Fiona. Anti wanted to just run over and hug her, but he didn’t. She tried to sneak behind him and go up the stairs, but Anti threw a wrench in her plans to escape.

“You were out late.” Anti commented harshly.

Fiona stopped but didn’t turn around “Was held up at work, there was a fight and a guy went through a wall.” she said quietly. Anti turned his head to look at her.

“Is that all? Those hickies on your neck tell a different story.”

It took her a minute before she spoke again. “I met my soulmate today…” Anti could tell by the tone of her voice that it was taking a lot to tell that to him. He appreciated that she was still even talking to him with the feud that they had going on.

“...how?...” Anti’s voice cracked a little bit.

“He came in and I… was his waitress for the night.”

“I’m sure you did more than just give him a drink” Anti said before he could stop himself.

“He’s my soulmate.” Fiona turned around and glared at Anti. “Just because you don’t want to meet yours doesn’t mean that you can keep me from mine.”

Anti didn’t hear a word she said, all he could look at was the ugly black bruise Fiona had on her right eye.

“How did you get that!” He yelled angrily and got up off the couch.

“There was a fight, I tried to break it up and got caught in the crossfire! It’s nothing serious!” Fiona said raising her voice.

“Nothing serious! NOTHING SERIOUS! You have a black eye!” Anti stormed over to her and yanked her head so he could get a better look.

“Jimmy took care of it! I’m fine.” Fiona slapped Anti’s hand off of her face.

“Who… the fuck… is JIMMY!” Anti shouted.

“My soulmate!” Fiona shouted back. There was a long silence, the only sound that could be heard was the sound of the TV. A news woman was speaking.

**_Breaking News:_ ** _ King Dark has released a picture of his soulmate mark on his new instagram account. It looks like there is a lucky queen out there after all! The photo was posted about an hour ago and there are already hundreds of people claiming to be King Dark’s soulmate. There hasn't been any word of if the Iplier government will step in to check all of these claims, but you can trust the Team 10 News station to keep you updated on the situation…  _

Fiona and Anti looked over at the TV, and sure enough a picture of King Dark shirtless posing in front of his mirror. His mark matching Anti’s perfectly. His’s almost pitch black eyes seemed to be looking right into Anti’s soul.

Fiona turned and looked at Anti in shock, their current argument long gone.

“ _ Holy Shit _ … your King Dark’s soulmate.” Anti felt hot, really hot. The room around him start to spin and the last thing he knew was him falling to the ground.


	2. Chapter 2

When Anti woke up, he was laying on the couch wrapped in a thick quilt blanket. It was still pretty dark outside, so he assumed he wasn’t out for that long.

“You okay?” He heard Fiona ask beside him. She was sitting on the chair right next to the couch holding a cup of coffee.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Anti sat up slowly, but recoiled when pain shot through his head, making it throb slightly. He groaned quietly and rubbed his forehead carefully.

“How long was I out?”

“Only 32 minutes, Jack and Sean came downstairs after you passed out. Apparently our yelling woke them up. I sent them back to bed.” Fiona’s thin fingers brushed some of her thick curly brown hair out of her face. “So…” her voice trailed off. It was obvious she didn’t know what to say.  
“So what?” Anti asked picking up his beer that was still on the side table, drinking the last few sips. His head felt like someone hit it with a bat.

“Seriously, we need to talk about this.” Fiona set her coffee down on the small wooden coffee table in front of the couch.“Your King Dark’s soulmate.” 

Anti almost flinched when she said that.

“Your point?” Anti crossed his arms, pretending not to be phased. He really didn't need to be reminded that his soulmate was  _ the _ most powerful person in the world. Just thinking about it made him slightly nauseous.

“Well, what are we going to do? How do we even get you to Dark?” Fiona looked like she was thinking long and hard about this.

“I’m not going to Dark.” Anti said very nonchalant, like it was yesterday’s news.

This completely shattered Fiona’s train of thought. “What do you mean?” Her voice started getting high and she looked at him  _ very  _ confused.

“I  _ can’t  _ meet King Dark,  _ end of story _ .” Anti got up to through away his empty beer bottle.

“You can’t do that! Your destined to be together!” Fiona got up and chased after him, flabbergasted. “This is your chance to finally be happy.”

“Who says I’m not happy how things are.” Anti’s voice started to rise at well. He almost broke the glass beer bottle when he chucked it into the trash can.

“You could be happier!” Fiona insisted. “You could live in a giant house, with servants to do everything for you, and you’ll have so much power, you could do whatever you want-”

“I  _ can’t _ .” Anti started mentally arguing with himself. Even if he were to make an announcement that he was Dark’s soulmate, how was his claim going to get past all the other people trying to be Dark’s soulmate? On the other hand, this could be his chance to give Sean and Jack the best private tutors in the world, but then they would become victims of paparazzi and social media. Would he be forced to move to Iplier? Leave everything behind? He couldn’t do that, he couldn’t leave his family like their mother and father did. Would Dark even want him? Who in their right mind would ever want a guy like Anti to be their soulmate?

All of this was starting to overwhelm him, but Anti didn’t dare show Fiona how hard he was trying to mentally process what was happening to him. He had to be the solid rock of the household.

Now his head was _ really _ starting to hurt.

“Why not!” Fiona threw her hands up in the air in frustration. “Why do you have to be so difficult all the time! Why can’t you just make things easier for once and-”

“I won’t let the  _ KING OF IPLIER _ see me as the highschool dropout I am!” Anti snapped and got in Fiona’s face, absolutely furious. Fiona had never seen him like this before and it frightened her. 

“I don’t want him to see his soulmate as the guy who steals sometimes just to get by! The guy who has to take care of his siblings because his parents ditched them when the second they got the chance!” he saw the scared look in Fiona's eyes and got out of her face. He took a deep breath to calm himself.

Anti took a few steps back so he was leaning on the wall, holding his throbbing head “I can’t let him know who I am... no matter how hard it hurts.” he let his body slide down the wall so that he was sitting on the floor, holding his legs close to his chest. He felt like crying, but did everything he could to stop himself. This was all just to much for one person to process.

Fiona didn’t say anything, she just got on the floor with Anti and hugged him for the first time in a long time.

“Hey…” she said in a very soothing voice to get his attention. “It’s alright, everything's going to be okay.” 

Anti couldn’t help but remember a very familiar time when Fiona was little.

_ “Hey… it’s alright, everything’s going to be okay.” Anti kept his voice as calm as possible. Trying his best to calm his crying little sister on the floor of her room. He got on his knees so that he could talk to her better. _

_ “No it’s not.” Fiona sniffed and wiped her nose with the grey sleeve of her jacket. “The entire 3rd grade thinks I’m some… slut. And it’s all thanks to my stupid soulmate mark! Everyone calls it tramp stamp.” _

_ Anti noticed the box of markers that was neglectfully thrown on the floor of Fiona’s room. It was obvious from their broken tips that they were not used with care. _

_ “Let me see your mark.” _

_ “No.” Fiona started sobbing again. _

_ “Come on Fi… I want to help. You know I’d never judge you right.” _

_ After a couple minutes of thinking Fiona finally pulled up her shirt slightly to show the blue butterfly on her lower back, only it was covered up with a rainbow of scribbles. _

_ “I think you have a very pretty soulmate mark.” _

_ “Yeah, well no one else does!” Fiona threw herself on her bed and buried her head in her rainbow butterfly pillow. _

_ Anti sat down on the side of her bed and started rubbing her back gently. “That’s not true… I bet your soulmate thinks it’s beautiful. Besides it could be worse, you could have a soulmate mark in the shape of a turd.” _

_ Fiona looked over at Anti and moved her short brown hair out of her blotchy red face. _

_ “A what?” her voice went hoarse from her crying. _

_ “Oh, you didn’t hear about David? The guy with a piece of shit on his face?” Anti started grinning when Fiona smiled a little. _

_ “Your lying, nobody has a turd mark on their face.” she giggled slightly. _

_ “Oh, and how do you know. Ms. Butterfly butt.” Anti pounced and started tickling Fiona vigorously. She howled with laughter and giggles. _

_ “STAHP!” She screeched trying to wiggle her way out of Anti’s grip. _

_ “What’s the magic word?” Anti teased. _

_ “MERCY! I SAID MERCY!” Fiona started hitting Anti playfully until he finally stopped his tickle assault. _

_ “I am the tickle champion!” He declared, “Don’t you ever forget that!” _

_ Fiona just stuck her tongue out at her older brother. “Yeah! Well mom told me she was the tickle champion!” _

_ Anti went quiet when Fiona brought up their mother. She left a few days ago and never told them where she was going or when she was even coming back. Anti began to slowly wonder where their mother was or if she was ok. He didn’t notice Fiona was talking to him until she was up in his face. _

_ “Anti? Are you okay?” she asked. _

_ “Yeah…” Anti pulled Fiona in for a hug. “I just miss mom.” he admitted, eyes watering a little bit. _

_ “Anti?” _

_ “Yeah.” _

_ “Do you know if mom will ever come back?” Fiona whispered very cautiously, she didn’t want to upset her brother even more than he already appeared to be. _

_ “Of course she will, she’s our mom, she has to.” Anti replied, but he knew that was far from the truth. _

“I’m sorry Fi…”

Fiona broke the hug and gave Anti a very surprised look. She hadn’t heard her nickname in years.

“We’re family, we support each other no matter what and… I haven’t been the most supportive lately, but I’m going to change that.” Anti took a deep breath before he continued to speak. “I want to meet him.”

Fiona wiped a tear from her cheek,“What?”

“I want to meet your soulmate, uh, Jimmy.” Anti said a little louder, “I want to know that your going to be okay.”

“Thanks Anti.” Fiona started tearing up all, “The truth is I hate my job...” She started sniffling a little bit. “...but I felt like I had to work there because I wanted to prove to you that I could be an adult and I was worried that if I didn’t pull my own weight, that you would kick me out. “ She stopped talking when Anti started wiping away the tears off her face. Some of her mascara smudging in the process.

“I’d never kick you out, no matter what okay? You never have to be afraid of that.”

They sat on the kitchen floor for a while, just enjoying the peaceful silence after the storm; until Anti got up off the ground.

“Today’s been an… _ interesting _ day, at least for me. We need some sleep.”

“You want to take the master bedroom tonight?” Fiona asked getting up off the kitchen floor.

“And let you take  _ my _ couch, not a chance. Now get to bed before I toss you into the neighbor’s pool.” Anti walked back over to the couch and let his body just flop on the old stained cushions. Fiona chuckled as she walked up the stairs.

“That hasn’t worked on me in a lot time Ant!”

Anti felt himself smile, a real smile at the sound of Fiona’s nickname for him. It’s been so long since she’s called him that and he never knew how much he missed it until now.

He wrapped himself in the thick, quilt blanket they kept on the couch but he didn’t get much sleep that night. To many thoughts in his head. Most of them about King Dark. Before he even knew what he was doing, he got up from the couch and went into the kitchen. After a minute of searching the cereal boxes, he finally found the family laptop.

It was old, but still worked like a charm thanks to the  _ many _ hours Anti put into fixing it.

The first thing that popped up when he searched King Dark was the picture he took in front of the mirror earlier that day, shirtless, exposing his soulmate mark to the world. Anti had to admit, he had a body to die for. He wondered how Dark had the time to work out. If he was the leader of a whole country he must not get much time to himself.

He found a short video clip of Dark’s coronation ceremony, about a month after the assassination of his parents. His speech was spotless, neat, clear, and his voice was so _ deep _ . 

It was definitely something that Anti could definitely fantasize about.

He quickly shut the laptop, surprised at the thought that just went through his head. He couldn’t think about Dark like that right now. He had work tomorrow, kids to feed… he needed to sleep.

Anti walked back to the couch and covered himself with the blanket. After about an hour of tossing and turning, he drifted off to sleep.

The next morning Anti woke up to the sound of a car alarm going off. ‘Normal day in South side.’ he was his first thought as he raised his head ever so slightly to look over at the digital clock by the TV . When he realized how late it was in the day, he started to panic.

“Fuck.” He swore and scrambled to his feet. “Boys! Fiona! Wake up we’re late!” he ran into the kitchen to start breakfast, but was surprised to see Fiona already in the kitchen making scrambled eggs.

“Look who decided to wake up today.” Fiona grabbed a plate from the kitchen cabinet and scrapped the eggs from the frying pan to the plate. “Don’t worry about Jack and Sean, I got them up and drove them to school this morning.”

“ _ Drove? _ ” Anti questioned. They could barely afford food on the table, how the hell did Fiona get ahold of a car?

“Jimmy sells cars for a living.” Fiona explained as if she could read his mind. She handed the plate of scrambled eggs to Anti. 

“He gave me a ride and took me out to breakfast, I also called Mandy to cover for you at the rink today. She demanded I tell you to call her back as soon as possible. Apparently she saw the picture of Dark and weird enough memorized what your soulmate mark looked like.”

Anti groaned. “Of course she did.” He walked over to the table and sat down. Fiona followed and sat down in the chair across from him.

“I also want to tell you that Jimmy is bringing all of us dinner tonight, and will be staying for dinner.”

Anti studied Fiona intensely, her brown eyes seemed… older than he remembered. Her hair longer than he thought it was.

“Ok…” was all Anti said as he started eating the yellow mush in front of him. Fiona was never the best cook in the family. 

A comfortable silence came across the room. For the second time since Fiona dropped out of highschool, the atmosphere seemed calm between them. 

Anti remembered when he dropped out of highschool, Fiona was only 10 at the time. Anti had worked at every job he could, to support her and the two boys who just turned 3. Shela, their neighbor helped out a lot with free babysitting and even gave Anti the money to get braces for Fiona. Sadly Shela died a few years later due to cancer, it was very unexpected and so fast she didn’t have time to write out a will. Anti made sure to swipe her TV and most of her good furniture. It was better he took it before the government could auction it off.

As far as Anti knew, Shela had no living relatives to pass anything onto. She rarely talked about her family, all he knew was that her husband committed suicide and her daughter died in a car accident before Anti was even born.

“What are you thinking about?” Fiona asked. Taking a sip from her coffee mug.

“How much times are changing.” Anti said and leaned back in his chair. “Sean and Jack are going to be in middle school next year… you have your soulmate, Mandi found her soulmate, kevin and Veronica are gonna have a baby.”

“Really? Good for Kev and V.. I know they were trying for the longest time.”

“Don’t you dare think you and Jimmy can start trying for kids just because your soulmates.” Anti said sarcastically, he was obviously joking.

Fiona smiled softly and chuckled. “Nah, I want… to move up North before I even think about starting a family. Maybe the classic house on a hill with a white picket fence, a dog running around the yard.” She started going into some sort of doozy trance as she kept going into details about her fantasy future. “I’d have my own restaurant -maybe a diner. Jimmy would always come in for lunch on his break. Maybe if the kids get old enough I can have them work the cash register, or have them cleaning tables.”

“You seem to have it all planned out.”

“What about you?”

Anti raised an eyebrow. “What about me?”

Fiona set her mug down. “If you don’t want to meet your soulmate, then what do you want?”

Anti shrugged. All of the sudden he felt like a child whose parents just asked the ‘So what do you want to do with your life’ question.

“I don’t know, a dog sounds pretty cool.” 

Fiona chuckled softly. “I’m serious. You know, Dark  _ is _ your soulmate. Both of you are destined to meet at some point. You can’t keep running away forever.”

Anti rolled his eyes. “You know I don’t believe in this destiny bull crap. As long as I don’t walk around with my soulmate mark exposed I’ll be fine. It’s not like we live in a very popular place. King Dark won’t just stroll on by our house one morning asking for a cup of flour.”

“I mean you could at least do a little research on the Iplier Royal family and the country.” Fiona suggested.

Anti opened his mouth to speak but was quickly interrupted by a finger being pressed to his lips.

“Before you say anything hear me out.”

Anti removed her hand away from his face, but didn’t say anything to show Fiona that he was listening.

“It wouldn’t hurt you at all to do a quick google search. Even if you don’t plan on meeting him. Jimmy has some family in Iplier that own this nice house by the beach and I was thinking about maybe… possibly…  _ havingmyweddingthere _ .” Fiona pushed her lips together, nervous of how Anti was going to react.

“Okay.” was all he said. He had made up his mind; Fiona was an adult  _ now _ . Not a month ago, not even yesterday. At that moment, as he had analyzed their current conversation, he saw her in a new light.

Fiona was confused at his lack of a response. “What? Did you even understand what I said?”

“Yes I did. If you want to start planning your marriage, I respect your decision.” Anti looked Fiona in the eyes.

“You are an adult now, it’s up to you to make these choices and except any consequence that comes your way..”

Fiona’s eyes got a little glossy. “Thank you, it means a lot to hear those words from you, and when I do eventually get married I want you to walk me down the aisle.”

“When you  _ eventually _ ?” Anti wanted to make sure he heard that right.

“Yeah, did you really think I was just going to just, fly out to Iplier and get married at the nearest church tomorrow? For the wedding I want, it might take a few years to get the money. It’s not like dad’s gonna help or anything.”

Anti clenched the side of the table at the thought of him. “That asshole would only stop in if he knew there would be free beer.”

“If only he knew you were King Mark’s soulmate.”

He cringed at that. “He’d hire a couple big guys to come get me and drag my ass to Iplier to get some sort of reward money.”

Fiona laughed, “And Mom would just butter you up and try to somehow convince you to take her to Iplier. Who knows, she might even try to take you soulmate from you, if you know what I mean.” she winked at Anti.

Anti cringed extra hard. “Ew, that’s so nasty. To think moms probably out there trying to seduce her next ‘big fish’.”

“Let’s just hope she doesn’t bring us another baby to take care-” Fiona was interrupted by a loud knock at the door.

“Were you expecting Jimmy to come?” Anti asked as he got up to go answer the door.

“No...  He isn’t coming until 8.” Fiona said, a suspicious look growing on her face as she followed close behind. “What if it’s one of Dad’s old  _ friends _ ?”

“Get the bat.” Anti ordered and cupped his hand around the small peep hole in the front door so he could get a better look at who was outside there house. He saw a rather tall fellow,  next to him was a beautiful black woman with long black hair that went past the middle of her back. 

Fiona grabbed the bat from the stairs and got ready to swing.

“False alarm!” Anti held up his hand to halt Fiona’s movements. “It’s just Kevin and Veronica.”

Fiona breathed a sigh of relief and put the bat back in the hook.

Before Anti could even open the door all the way, Kevin was already pushing past him to get inside.

“I just heard the news. Who else knows about… the _ situation _ ?” Kevin asked looking around the house.

“And a hello to you too.” Anti replied, voice dripping with sarcasm. He shut the door after Veronica walked in. She just rolled her eyes.

“Sorry about that, Kevs just paranoid that Iplier aircrafts are just gonna pop up anytime now and start manhandling people looking for you.” She sounded slightly annoyed. “Kevy baby, stop searchin’ the house, there are no hidden cameras in the walls.”

“You don’t know that!” Kevin’s voice could be heard in the downstairs bathroom.

“Anyways.” Veronica smiled and continued, “I found out who your soulmate is.” her smiled evolved into a wide smirk and she poked Anti lightly. “Your gonna be sleepin’ with the king of the world.”

“Nope.” Fiona butted in, “Mr. Ray of sunshine over here doesn’t want to meet his soulmate.”

Veronica’s mouth dropped open. “You cannot be fuckin serious.” she looked over at Fiona, eyes widened in shock. “Please tell me he isn’t that  _ stupid _ .” While she wasn’t looking, Anti mouthed the words ‘shut the fuck up’ to his sister.

But the look on Fiona’s face was enough to answer her question.

“Okay.” Anti clapped his hands together to get their attention, he wanted the subject to change. “Why don’t we all just sit down and-”

Veronica slapped Anti clear across the face. “You idiot! Didn’t anyone teach you not to play with fate.”

“Woah, woah, woah.” Kevin quickly walked over and wrapped his arms around his wife. “Remember what the doctor said about getting yourself all worked up-”

“Not now Kev. I have to knock some sense into this boy. He really thinks he can just leave his own soulmate hanging like that! Especially when he’s  _ king of the fucking world _ .”

“Can we please stop talking about my soulmate for two fuckin minutes!” Anti snapped. “And he’s technically not the King of the world, he’s just-”

“The King of the richest and most powerful country in the world.” Veronica finished for him, her voice filled with passion. “And I’m pretty sure there’s some law that you can't keep  _ the _ Dark of Iplier’s soulmate away from him. What if he finds you and-”

“He won’t find me, if you would just  _ keep your mouth shut! _ ” Anti’s anger started to appear in his voice so Fiona stepped in between them.

“Anti calm down, nobody's going to the authorities to report you. Right Vi?”

Veronica took a deep breath to calm herself before speaking “Fine, but I still think this is wrong.”

“Okay, now that’s settled, why don’t we just go in the kitchen and I can make all of us some tea.” Fiona forced a smile on her face as she walked by everyone to get to the kitchen.

 

“So Vi, I heard you guys are finally pregnant.” Fiona said breaking the awkward silence in the room. All of them were sitting down at the kitchen table drinking their sweet tea.

“Yeah, I’m 6 weeks along right how, 6 more and the doctor can tell us if it’s a boy or a girl.” Veronica put her hand on the slight bump on her belly.

“I’m hoping for a boy, someone to toss the old pigskin around in the front yard.” Kevin put his arm around Veronica. “I bet he’ll be a real Kevin Jr.”

“We  _ are not _ naming our son Kevin Jr.”

“Aw, come on Vi. This could be the start of a line of Kevin’s; Kevin the III, Kevin the IV, Kevin the-”

“No.” Veronica’s voice was firm.

“Well what if it’s a girl?” Fiona asked.

The conversation went quiet for a minute. “Not gonna lie… I never pictured us having a girl.” Kevin said looking down at Veronica’s belly.

“Well, whatever it is. It’s gonna need a room. So you better hurry up and take out your gaming stuff out of the spare room upstairs.” Veronica took a long sip from her tea.

“Aw, but Vi that’s my gaming room.” He looked towards Anti, pleading. “Anti help me out man. She’s gonna make me take down my man cave.”

“Well she has a point, kids need room to grow.” Anti said.

“Finally, the boy starts talking sense.” Veronica smiled in victory when Kevin hung his head down in defeat. The tension in the air disappeared.

“I’ve only raised 3 kids, I should know these things by now.” Anti looked over at Fiona and smirked mischievously. “⅔ good kids isn’t bad.”

“Hey!” Fiona playfully punched him in the arm. “I’m not a kid anymore  _ remember _ .”

“Yeah you're right, you're an old lady now.” Anti smirk got even wider when Fiona got even more riled up.

“I will personally get out of my chair and beat your ass.” She threatened cracking her knuckles. It was all in good fun, Anti knew that.

“And I’ll toss you into the neighbor’s pool.” Anti retorted.

Kevin just laughed, “Really dude? You need to stop threatening people that your gonna toss them in our pool.”

“We both know that’s never going to happen Kev.” Anti cracked his knuckles too. “Besides, I still need that line to take care of Jack and Sean.”

“Oh my god, remember when he held Jack outside the second story window.” Fiona said.

“Yeah, the whole street came out to see what the commotion was about.” Veronica laughed. “That poor boy was scared shitless.”

“Well it worked, he didn’t fail 4th grade.” Anti leaned back in his chair, finally starting to relax. “And now he doesn’t lie to me anymore.”

“I wouldn’t say that.” Fiona muttered as she took a sip of her tea.

“What are you trying to insinuate.” Anti crossed his arms over his chest.

“Remember that time you asked Jack if he liked Prince Mark and he said no.”

Anti nodded, encouraging Fiona to continue.

“Well he lied, Jack has a full on obsession with Prince Mark. I honestly think he has a crush on him or something.”

Anti almost knocked his tea off the table. “What…”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t find Jack’s special ‘journal’ under his bed.”

Anti sprang up out of his seat and bolted upstairs without another word. He _ had _ to see this journal for himself. 

He slammed open the kid’s bedroom door and sure enough when he looked under Jack’s bed, there was a black spiral notebook labeled “DO NOT TOUCH UNLESS YOU ARE JACK”. 

He opened it, and the first page had a giant picture of Prince Mark cut out from the cover of a kid’s magazine. He posing in front of the new virtual reality gaming system that came out last year.

‘How the hell did he even get this?’ Anti thought looking through all the pages. He didn’t remember giving either of them any magazines, especially ones imported from Iplier. Most of the pages were full of Mark on game shows or posing for cameras. There were a few notes like, “Omg he’s so cool” and “His red hair looks so awesome!” scattered in the book.

Anti quickly closed the journal and slid it back under the bed, so that Jack couldn’t tell it was touched. When he walked back downstairs, Kevin and Veronica were both laughing at something Fiona had said.

When Fiona saw Anti sit back down she asked him, “So did you find it? It was the black-”

“Yeah, I found it.” Anti pulled at his dark green hair, “How the hell did I miss that?”

“I guess you aren’t Mr. Wonder parent after all.” Kevin joked.

“How long has this been going on?” Anti asked Fiona.

She shrugged her shoulders, “I found it like two weeks ago, but judging from the amount of pictures in there. I think he’s been collecting for at least a couple years.”

“Damn, the kid probably has his own supplier and everything.” Veronica leaned against Kevin. “I wonder what our kids’ celebrity crush will be.”

The sound of something vibrating on top of the refrigerator made Kevin jump.

“Don’t answer it!” Kevin shouted. “I heard that Iplier agents can track cell phones!” Veronica just rolled her eyes again at her husbands paranoia.

Anti got up anyway and checked to see who was calling.

“It’s just Mandi.” he told Kevin before he answered it.

“Hello.”

“YOU ASSHOLE! YOU WERE SUPPOSE TO CALL ME!”

Anti flinched and moved his ear away from the phone.

“Sorry, Kevin and Veronica came over and-”

“I DON’T WANT TO HEAR YOUR EXCUSES! I want to know when your fucking getting married! I better be fuckin invited!”

“I’m not getting married.”

“What the hell is that suppose to mean?”

“Imma just let you talk to Fiona.” Anti tossed the phone over to his sister who barely caught it. She flipped Anti off before answering it.

“Hey Mandi…. Yeahhhhhh, Anti doesn’t want to meet Dark so-” Fiona flinched and everyone in the room could hear Mandi’s voice screaming curse words into the phone.

“Yeah, I know my brother’s an idiot. You can talk to him next monday.” Fiona quickly shut the flip phone, silencing Mandi’s voice.

“We should probably get going.” Kevin said as he got up out of his seat to stretch his limbs.

“Yeah, we can’t afford to miss the rush hour on a friday night.” Veronica followed her husband’s lead. She walked over to Anti and gave him a hug.

“I seriously hope you know what your doing.” she whispered in Anti’s ear. “Fate is not a kind mistress.” She pulled away to give Fiona a hug goodbye.

Kevin walked over and gave Anti a hard hug. Anti felt like his body was being crushed into a wall of meat.

“You know, not meeting your soulmate is probably the first selfish decision you’ve made since I’ve known you. That’s good, you need to start taking care of yourself more. Start doing things that you want to do.”

And with that Kevin and Veronica left.

When Jack and Sean got home from school, a stranger with short brown hair and blue eyes walked in with them. Anti quickly grabbed the emergency bat and got ready to swing

“WOAH woah woah! I’m Jimmy! Fiona’s soulmate!” he yelled, putting the bags he was holding above him to protect his head from the bat.

Anti quickly stopped mid swing, realizing Jimmy wasn’t a threat.

“You must be Anti…” Jimmy held out his hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Anti set the bat down and shook his hand firmly. “What’s in the bags?” he asked.

“Oh, I um. Didn’t know what you liked so I just picked up some KFC before picking the boys up from school.” Jimmy opened the bags to show Anti the paper buckets of chicken and biscuits.”

Anti had to admit, the boy was helping out with the family. He could see himself getting along with Jimmy.

“Fiona! Your boy toy is here with food!” He shouted. 

Fiona was upstairs “getting ready”, Anti thought it was stupid considering they weren’t going out or anything.

Fiona was running down the stairs within seconds. Wearing a Burgundy sweater and her nice black jeans. Her hair was up in a ponytail and Anti was surprised to see that she was wearing her nice lipstick.

“Hey you~” she walked up to Jimmy and gave him a long hug and a kiss. Jimmy dropped the bags of food on the ground to wrap his arms around her small waist.

Sean and Jack made gagging sounds and Anti rolled his eyes.

“Yeah yeah, your soulmates, but that doesn’t mean you can fornicate in front of your brothers!” Anti grabbed the bags of food Jimmy dropped from the ground and brought them in the kitchen.

“You’ll understand when you see your soulmate!” Fiona teased and they all went into the kitchen to have dinner.

 

“So Jimmy, where ya from?” Anti asked, ignoring Jack and Sean making faces at each other from across the table.

“Oh, I currently live in an apartment building a couple miles from here. The rest of my family lives in Northside.”

Anti nearly dropped his biscuit. “Northside?” He wanted to be sure he heard that right. The North side of Septic known for its beautiful suburbs and it’s Northern Mountains, the place where the richest people of Septic built their million dollar mansions, hotels and resorts.

“My family has a place in the Northern Mountains.”

This got Jack and Sean’s attention.

“Really! Is it true that the streets are made of  _ gold  _ there?” Jack asked excitedly bouncing in his seat.

“I heard that they give all the students that go to school there laptops!” Sean gushed “And that they have an actual science lab filled with robots that do your homework-”

“Boys, sit still and eat your dinner before I steal something off your plate!” Anti scolded. The boys quickly settled back down in their seats.

“What brings you to Southside?” Anti averted his attention back to JImmy.

Jimmy seem to zone out for a minute.

“Jim? Are you okay?” Fiona grabbed his hand and seemed to snap him out of it.

“Oh, I just wanted a change. The people here are so… lively.” He tried to make a smooth recovery, but Anti saw right through it.

Yeah, _ lively _ was a way to describe them. Anti thought, he knew that Jimmy was lying but didn’t say anything about it.

The rest of the dinner went by fairly smooth. Anti found out that Jimmy actually owned the car dealership and he offered to sell Anti a good car for a low price, but Anti denied his offer.

When it got late, Fiona went upstairs to put the boys to bed and Anti decided this was the perfect time to talk to Jimmy one on one.

He handed Jimmy a bottle of beer and sat next to him on the couch.

“Oh no thanks, I gotta drive home.” Jimmy said, trying to give it back, but Anti was persistent.

“Just take it, you can spend the night here if you want.” 

Jimmy reluctantly took the bear and relaxed a bit.

“So you want to tell me the real reason you came to the Southside?” Anti asked, popping the lip off of his beer.

“I wasn’t lying.”

Anti glared at Jimmy. If there was one thing Anti hated the most, it was when people lied to him.

“Lie to me one more time and I’ll toss you into the neighbors pool.”

Jimmy nearly choked on his beer. “Okay okay, I’ll talk.”

He wiped off his mouth before speaking “The real reason I came out here was to get away from my family.”

“What’s wrong with your family?” Anti asked trying to get to the point.

“My family may be rich, but money doesn’t make all your problems go away. My parents aren’t soulmates, they’re married because they both came from money. My dad’s soulmate turned out to be our maid and has been cheating on my mom for years.”

“Why doesn’t your dad get a divorce?”

“Because he’s a giant prick that believes marriage is for money, and soulmates are for sex.” Jimmy scratched the back of his head.

“You wouldn’t, by any chance happen to have a pack of cigarettes.”

“I do, but we only smoke outside.” Anti got up from the couch. “I don’t want Sean or Jack inhaling any of this shit.”

Jack grabbed the pack he hid behind the dryer and walked out to the backyard. Jimmy took out his lighter and they smoked together under the oak tree.

“There are a lot of arranged marriages in high society.” Jimmy continued. “People are afraid that if their children have soulmates that come from lower class families that it would affect the family fortune, arranged marriage seems like the only guaranteed way that the rich stay rich. All of them are unhappy, and when they do meet their soulmate it just turns onto a bunch of affairs and scandals. I left because I didn’t want that to be my life.”

Anti didn’t know how to respond to that. He just blew out a bit of smoke into the night sky.

Jimmy sighed. “That’s what happens when you play with fate I guess, you end up miserable and alone.”


	3. Chapter 3

A few months passed, and everything seemed to fall into place. Fiona quit her job and got a new one at a coffee shop by Jimmy’s car dealership. 

To congratulate her, Jimmy bought her a car! It was very simple, used, blue honda, but it made things for the family _ so much _ easier. Fiona even let Anti drive it if he needed to get groceries.

It got broken into about a week after they got it, but the robbers didn't take anything of value. The only thing that sucked was now one of the back windows had a huge whole in it. Jimmy estimated it would take at least a couple hundred dollars to fix it, so Anti just took a roll of duct tape outside and covered it up.

Jimmy decided that he didn’t like his roommates anymore so Fiona offered to let him live in their house. Until they both eventually found another place close by to live. 

Anti didn’t like it at first, but eventually grew accustomed to having another working member of the household to help pay the bills and buy food. He could now start putting money away for when Jack and Sean go off to college instead of living paycheck to paycheck. It wasn’t much, but Anti hoped that if he kept saving then it would at least be enough for a year of community college for both of them by the time they reached 18.

Veronica and Kevin had a gender reveal party! They found out that they were having twins; a boy and a girl. No matter how many times Kevin begged Veronica, “Kevin Jr” was not on the list of possible baby names.

Everything was going great until the Iplier government made a global announcement that they would start sending scouts to look for King Dark’s soulmate. A member of Iplier’s royal council, Lord Bob, gave a speech about how they looked through all of Iplier’s records and couldn’t find a single person that matched his royal highness’s soulmate mark. They were forced to rely on foreign countries to help look for his highness’s soulmate, and the country that found them would receive an award, along with a military treaty.

Fiona started to panic, but Anti reassured her. The government of Septic would never think of searching the South side of the island for  _ the _ King Dark’s soulmate. Hell, they barely had any law enforcement in Southside. 

Jimmy was still unaware that Anti was Dark’s soulmate and Anti wanted to keep it that way. The less people knew the better, and he didn’t know if Jimmy would tell his Northside friends or not.

Anti could be worried that the Septic government  _ might  _ check the Southside, in desperation to get on Iplier’s good side; but right now Anti was more concerned with setting up Sean and Jack’s 12th birthday party at the roller skating rink.

 

“I think we need more balloons.”

“Anti, if we put another balloon in this place, it might fly away.” Fiona said sarcastically, as she quickly started setting the table with party paper plates and plastic forks.

“Hey Anti! Do you think this sign looks straight?” one of the bar guys asked. Kevin invited a bunch of them to help set up the surprise party, in return they got free food and most importantly beer.

Anti looked at the old worn out birthday banner and nodded. 

“Yeah that looks good. Fiona, is Jimmy here with the cake yet?”

“He just called and said he was on his way.” Fiona replied.

“Tell him to hurry up! Kev and Vi are going to show up with the boys any minute now!” Anti started ripping open plastic bags filled with paper cups to help Fiona set the party table.

“Anti calm down, you might turn  _ my  _ hair grey with the amount of stress coming off of your body.”

“This is the first  _ real _ party the boys have ever gotten for their birthday, I want it to be special.” Anti tossed Fiona a stack of cups. He felt bad that he used some of the college money he had been saving up to pay for the party; but he felt like everyone could use a mood boost lately. Especially when they heard Lord Bob’s speech about the scouts looking for him.

“Anti! Their walking to the front door!” Mandi shouted from her look out spot behind the front desk.

“Shit.” Anti swore, “EVERYONE HURRY UP AND HIDE!”

Anti quickly ran over to a wall of balloons to hide behind them and to turned out the lights.

He heard the squeaky door open and a group people walk in.

“It looks like a ghost town in here.” Sean commented looking around in the dark.

“I thought you said we were picking Anti up from work?” Jack’s voice sounded confused.

When his newly dyed green hair came into view Anti flicked on the lights.

“SURPRISE!!!!!”

Sean and Jack both jumped back in shock as everyone jumped out from their hiding places.

Kevin took a picture with his camera, while Veronica laughed hysterically, holding her pregnant belly..

When the boys realized what was going on they both smiled and ran to hug Anti and Fiona.

“Happy birthday ya’ fuckin rascals.” Anti ruffled Jacks hair. He was so happy how the bright green color came out, it wasn’t like his own dark green hair at all.

“Are we gonna get to skate?” Sean asked.

Jack started jumping up and down with excitement. “Oh, please please please Anti.”

“Well I didn’t rent out the place all night for nothing, go put on your skates and have fun. I’ll call you when Jimmy gets here with the cake.”

And just like that the two boys ran over to the counter where Mandi already had their skates ready to go.

 

The party was a hit. The bar guys started making drunk bets to see who could get around the rink without falling on their face. None of them won. 

Veronica and Kevin where on skates going slow. Ironically, it was Veronica who had to help Kevin get on his feet a couple times. 

Sean and Jack were goofing around, pushing and shoving each other. Anti had to yell at them a couple times about the safety rules of the roller rink, but they didn’t listen. Anti eventually just let it go, it was their birthday after all.

Fiona and Jimmy were holding hands as they went at a steady pace around the old rink. Occasionally Fiona would try to get Anti to put some skates on and join them, but he would always turn down the offer.

He decided to be the dj for the night and plugged the laptop into the place’s loudspeakers.

“Hey Mr. DJ!”

Anti looked over to see Mandi with her hair tied up and a pair of skates in her right hand.

“You should get out there, I can take over the music for a bit.”

“No thanks, I’m good.” Anti went to click on the next song but Mandi shoved him away.

“Well I wasn’t asking, put these on.” She dropped the skates into his hands and took his spot behind the laptop.

Anti knew he had no choice when it came to Mandy and cursed her when he went out on the roller rink. It was actually really nice to be on skates again, the last time he went skating was when their father Frank was still with them. When Frank was sober, he would take him and FIona to the roller rink. Well… he would  _ sneak _ them in and steal skates off the racks.

“Hey Anti! I bet you can’t beat me!” Jack shouted as he passed him up.

Anti grinned and chased after him, he was still pretty good after all these years. He easily passed up Jack and Sean. Sticking his tongue out to mock them as he zoomed past.

He felt free and alive as he went in circles, passing up everyone he could.

“Yeah! Go Anti!” Fiona cheered him on with a smile. While Jimmy gave him as thumbs up.

“Damn Anti!” Kevin hollered, as he clung onto Veronica for dear life. Veronica smiled and waved “Now if only you could teach Kev how to do that!”

Anti bathed in the complements he was getting. It encouraged him to get a little cocky, and started doing tricks. He spun around really fast in the center before going backwards around the rink.

But sadly his moment of fame was over when he fell backwards and landed on his right hand.

“Anti!” Sean and Jack were the closest ones to him, so they helped him get to the side of the rink.

Veronica quickly went over him to check him out.

“Are you okay? Tell me what hurts.” she started grabbing at his hands and immediately Anti winced in pain, and felt his wrist throb.

“Oh my god, Anti what happened?” Fiona stopped in front of him. Jimmy was close behind.

“It looks like a sprain.” Veronica diagnosed. “I still have a wrist brace at home from when Kev sprained his wrist falling down the stairs.”

“I’m fine.” Anti pulled his hand away from Veronica and lightly started to rub it. 

“Boys I think it’s time for you to open your gifts now.”

“Finally!” they cheered and ran over to the present table.

“Fiona, can you go with them?” Anti asked. She reluctantly nodded and followed her younger brothers off the rink.

Kevin walked over, with his skates over his shoulders.

“You need some help hot shot?” he offered his empty hand to help Anti up.

Anti grinned and grabbed Kevin’s hand with his good one. “Yeah, thanks.” he said as he was easily pulled up onto his feet.

“Looks like someone got a little to cocky and-”

“Shut up Kev!”

 

Sean and Jack mostly got money for their birthday, with the occasional water gun or action figure. Fiona got them a couple gaming magazines and specifically gave the one featuring Prince Mark to Jack.

Jack’s face immediately lit up and he hugged his sister.

“Thank you so much! I have more to to- er I mean…. I have more consoles to dream about having.” he chuckled nervously hoping nobody would see his little slip up.

‘Yeah right.’ Anti thought sarcastically, but didn’t say anything.

“I think that’s all the gifts.” Kevin said as he wiped off the table with an old hand rag.

“Wait! I have one more.” Jimmy announced very dramatically, pulling a white envelope from his jacket pocket.

He handed it over to Sean, who started to carefully open the closed seal.

“Your going to slow!” Jack wined and snatched it from him. Before Sean could steal it back, Jack was already ripping it open.

“Oh….. My…. GOD!” Jack dropped the paper that was inside on the floor.

Anti looked over at Jimmy suspiciously, wondering what the hell he got them.

Sean picked it up off the ground and his jaw dropped. “It’s a family pass to see Prince Mark… IN PERSON!”

“WHAT!” FIona and Anti exclaimed.

“Yup!” Jimmy looked proud. “I did some research and found out that Prince Mark is actually on tour right now. He’s having these little ‘ _ meet and greet’ _ thingies and I thought it would be cool for us to go tomorrow.”

Anti wasn’t sure how to feel about this. Jack and Sean looked pretty excited, but this was the Iplier Royal Family. If Anti’s cover got blown… Anti didn’t even want to think about it.

“Uh… Jimmy, I need to talk to you for a second.” Fiona’s tone meant business and Jimmy’s face fell slightly as she tugged on his arm, and pulled him away from the party.

Anti knew what they were going to talk about and secretly followed them. He leaned behind the vending machine quietly.

“What were you thinking?! You didn’t tell me you were going to buy Prince Mark Meet and Greet tickets!” He overheard Fiona whisper harshly.

“I thought this would be a nice surprise, a little family vacation.” Jimmy said, keeping his voice down. “I don’t know why your getting so upset about it”

“You didn’t think to consult me about this first!”

“I thought you would have loved it!”

“Can you get a refund?”

“No, I got them from a buddy of mine in the Northside that owed me a favor. I still don’t see why you’d want to get a refund.”

He heard Fiona whisper something but he couldn’t quite hear exactly what she was saying.

“WHAT!” Jimmy screeched.

“Shhhhh, you can’t tell  _ anyone  _ about this.”

Anti knew that Fiona just told Jimmy that he was King Dark’s soulmate.

“Jimmy calm down.”

“ _ Calm down _ ! You guys kept this a secret from me for three months! You never thought this might be something important that I should know! Why is Anti not doing anything about it?”

“Anti doesn’t want  _ anyone _ to know, we’re trying to lay low-”

“You didn’t think it was necessary to tell me! I thought I was finally apart of a family!”

“The less people know the better, things have been going really well for us lately and Anti doesn’t want to go to Iplier anytime soon.”

“But what if Iplier decides ‘hmmmm, Septic seems like a good place, why don’t we make a pitstop.’ You know how this soulmate thing works.” Jimmy started being dramatic, moving his hands around as he talked.

“You know the chances of that happening are slim to none!”

“Well the mark on Anti’s back proves otherwise!”

Anti felt responsible for their fighting, and knew he had to fix it. He slowly came out from his hiding place and walked over to Fiona and Jimmy.

“Your right Jim, we should have told you.” he interrupted their bickering

“Anti! Were you…  _ spying _ on us.” Fiona sounded angry, but Anti ignored her.

“We’re going to the meet and greet tomorrow.”

“Anti, we can’t. This is the Iplier royal family we’re meeting, what if someone sees your back?” Fiona tried to reason with him.

“I’ll wear a hoodie.”

“Well… what if we see King Dark there?”

“King Dark’s currently in Pewdie, celebrating Prince Felix’s 24th birthday.” Jimmy said “He’s nowhere near Septic right now and oh my god your technically royalty!” he took a step back from Anti. His mouth dropped and he just stared at him in awe.

“Shhhhhhhh.”Anti put his hand over Jimmy’s mouth. “Could you be any fucking louder! I’m not going to Iplier and I’m not  _ royalty _ .”

Fiona slapped Anti’s hand off on Jimmy’s face. “Well being Dark’s soulmate kinda’ makes you by definition the Queen-”

“Shut up Fiona!” Anti rubbed the temples of his forehead. He took a deep breath, “I really don’t want to be discussing this right now so I’ll make this simple.” He looked back at Jack and Sean. Watching them smile and dance around with excitement made him happy. He couldn’t tell them no. 

“Jack really wants to meet his Idol and Sean probably is coming up with a million questions to ask Prince Mark right now…” Anti paused for a moment. “This is their birthday, and we are celebrating it together. We’re going to that meet and greet tomorrow and then we’re coming straight home.”

Jimmy and Fiona didn’t say anything. He new Jimmy wanted to ask him something, but was glad he kept quiet about it. Anti’s head was starting to hurt again and he still needed to clean up the place.

It was midnight before Fiona and Anti got Sean and Jack to bed. Fiona went to bed with Jimmy, and Veronica came over with Kevin’s wrist brace. She carefully helped Anti put it on.

“Now, it’s a little big on you, but I think it's still do its job nicely. I highly suggest you ice it before you go to bed and don’t fuck it up anymore than it is..”

“Thank you Dr. Veronica Fisher.” Anti said in a sarcastic tone, but deep down he was thankful for her generosity.

“No problem, but next time our water heater goes out, you bet your sweet bubble butt I’ll be over here with my special candles taking a long hot bubble bath.” Veronica gave him a hug. “Take care of yourself ok? I can tell you aren’t sleeping enough at night and I think it might be cause your body knows your soulmate is so far away-”

“Vi, I’m fine.” Anti rolled his eyes.

“I’m serious.” Veronica pulled away. “Remember when Kevin left to see his supplier and he was gone for a week?”

Anti nodded, honestly too tired to care at that moment.

“Well after like, day 3 I could hardly get any sleep at night. I was so worried that something bad would happen to him and-”

“Veronica, I’m fine. I’ll go to bed as soon as you leave ok?”

She seemed hesitant to go, but gave in and left out the back door to go through the gate connecting their backyards.

Anti made sure to get an ice pack from the freezer on his way back to the couch. When he got comfortable enough, he lightly placed the bag on his injured wrist.

The feeling came back.

He nearly jumped to his feet.

‘No… everything's fine…. Tomorrow is gonna go smoothly, no surprises’ He tried to convince himself, but the feeling didn’t go away.

He walked back to the kitchen and got out the laptop. He searched King Dark and still the first thing that popped up was the picture of his soulmate mark.

Anti nearly groaned in frustration, seriously, it was still after all these months the top google search. The next thing that popped up was an article about Prince Felix’s birthday. It came with a picture taken early that day of Dark and Felix shaking hands in front of the Pewdie Palace.

“See, he’s all the way in Pewdie, he isn’t here. I have nothing to worry about.” Anti whispered affirmations to himself. Hoping desperately that it would calm his nerves.

He shut the laptop and put it back in it’s hiding spot before going back to the couch. The restless feeling coming back and no matter how much he tried to sleep it off, it wouldn’t go away. 

Eventually he managed to get his body to relax enough to drift to sleep.

 

_ Anti felt like he was falling, down and down a dark hole until he reached a pool of water down bellow. He tried to swim up to the surface, but no matter how hard he kicked and moved his arms he couldn’t find a pocket of air. It was like he was trapped in an endless sea, with no way to get out. _

_ Eventually he realized that he could breathe just fine and stopped swimming. It was weird, his body still felt and looked like it was submerged in water. But he felt… fine. _

_ A wave of dark brown hair got his attention. He turned to see Fiona floating beside him. Jack and Sean were right behind her, calm expressions on their faces. _

_ He felt relief flow through his body and he swam closer to them. _

_ Right we he got close, a loud sound of something else falling into the water came from behind him. _

_ It was Jimmy! His body sinking deeper and deeper into the endless ocean. Until Fiona swam down and grabbed his hand. Anti swam down close behind her to help her pull Jimmy up. His body seemed to get lighter and lighter until he started floating along with them. _

_ Anti let his body go limp and just float in the numbing water that surrounded him entirely. Everything seemed to be okay, until a giant fish net plunged down into the water. He frantically swam out of the way, but Jack’s leg got caught in the thick netting. _

_ Anti immediately sprung into action and grabbed onto a bit of net. Trying to somehow rip it apart to free Jack, but it didn’t work. The net started pulling him up through the water, faster and faster, until he finally broke the surface. _

_ He was pulled up onto a sailboat and tossed onto the deck like a fish. He scrambled to get onto his feet, but felt himself get pinned to the floor by strong hands. _

_ He looked to see his capture and froze when he saw Dark’s eyes looking back at him. _

 

“Hey Ant, wake up. We need to get moving if we want to make it to the North side on time.”

A hand gently shook him awake. Anti jolted up into a sitting position and started feeling the couch cushions under his hands. Wincing when his injured hand accidentally grabbed the pillow to hard.

That was a weird dream.

“Hey Ant, can you get the boys up. Jimmy says we should hit the road within 30 minutes if we want to get to the Northern entertainment center on time.” Fiona said, walking into the kitchen.

Anti didn’t say anything, he just carried his tired body up the stairs to get the boys up. He kept thinking about his dream. Maybe they shouldn’t go.

Before he could open the boy’s door, Jack was running out, fully dressed and ready to go.

“Hurry up Sean! I don’t wanna be late!” He exclaimed as he went by.

Sean walked out, yawning, and still in his Pj’s.

“He’s never like this in the morning…” he complained and started rubbing the sleep from his eye.

Anti smiled a little and ruffled Sean’s brown hair with his left hand. “Just get your ass downstairs for breakfast.”

Sean rolled his eyes and walked down the stairs. His feet trudging along each step. Anti used the golden opportunity to use the bathroom to change. With 5 people living in a small house, it was rare to have the bathroom all to himself.

He spotted his black hoddie under the sink and picked it up. It was slightly damp, but it worked nicely to cover up his back.

“Hurry up Anti! I want to get on the road!” Jack called from downstairs.

“I’ll come out when I’m done using your journal as toilet paper!” Anti yelled back.

“You better not!” he heard Jack’s voice crack slightly.

“If your gonna argue, do it downstairs Anti!” Fiona butted in. “Last thing we need is for those bitches down the road to give us another noise complaint!”

Anti quickly washed his face and came down stairs. Jack was already done with his breakfast and waiting at the door.

“Can you guys go any slower?” He groaned very sarcastically.

“Hold your horses little man.” Jimmy said, walking out of the downstairs bathroom that connected to the kitchen. “Some of us want to actually enjoy our morning.” he playfully hit Jack on the head with a newspaper.

Anti sat down at the table and Fiona handed him a plate of toast. He decided to fuck with her a little bit to get his mind off of the weird feeling.

“This shit is burnt.”

“Well _ that shit  _ is the only thing your eating until we get back from the meet and greet, so you're eating it.” Fiona smacked the back of Anti’s head.

“Can you guys like, eat in the car or something.” Jack jumped into his chair and started rocking it back and forth.

“No.” Fiona and Anti said in unison.

Jack just huffed and crossed his arms over his chest.

After breakfast, they all started loading themselves into Fiona’s car; Jimmy driving, Fiona in the passenger's seat, and Jack and Sean in the back. Anti paused for a moment before he got in. 

His “feeling” that something was going to happen came back 10 fold and for the first time in a long time he felt scared.

“Hey Anti! Ya comin’ or what?” he heard Jimmy shout, honking the car horn slightly to get his attention. Fiona raised her eyebrow as she watched Anti. He knew that the second he told her he had a weird feeling about this that she would get out of the car and they all would stay home. Fiona trusted Anti’s instincts more than Anti did.

Anti felt the need to stop, he needed to go inside and lay down, this was a stupid idea, this is putting him at risk of being discovered, this is-

“Come ooooooon Anti!” Jack said. “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity!”

“Please can we just go.” Sean started begging now. Both of them were giving their best puppy dog eyes.

Before he even knew what he was doing he was seated in the car and the car door was shut.

“Sorry… I zoned out there.” he said sheepishly.

“Alright!” Jimmy put his key into the ignition. “Let’s get this show on the road! Next stop, Northside!”

Anti looked out the back window and watched their house get smaller and smaller as they went down the street. This was a bad idea.

He felt a smaller hand on top of his good one.

“It’ll be fun Anti, I promise you won’t regret this.” Jack said, resting his head on Anti’s shoulder.

Anti started lightly petting Jack’s green hair.

“I know it’ll be fun. We’re all together.”

 

After 2 hours of driving, and a lot of bathroom breaks, they finally made it to the Northern side of the island.

“Woah….” Sean awed at the sights of the huge buildings that towered over everything.

Anti had to admit that he was impressed at the white sidewalks, fancy cars, fancy dogs, pretty much everything looked new and spotless.

“And you gave all this up for a dump.” Fiona joked and elbowed Jimmy.

“Trust me, it’s not as good as you think…” Jimmy said, tightening his grip on the steering wheel. It seemed like being here brought back a lot of memories, but Anti didn’t push him to find out.

As they got towards the middle of the city, they kept getting...  _ looks  _ from the people in the streets. Most of them in disgust.

Jack and Sean got really quiet as soon as they started to notice the looks. Anti couldn’t blame them, it was like they were driving around in a clown car that screamed _ “cheap” _ on a road where people had cars that Anti would never be able to afford, even if he worked everyday for the rest of his life..

“Hey.” He lightly punched them both. “This is going to be the best day of your lives remember.”

That seemed to put a tiny smile on Jack’s face, but Sean remained neutral.

They eventually found a cheap enough parking garage by the entertainment center, and made their way into the beautiful building.

“Excuse me Miss, we need to check your purse and the rest of you need to go through a metal detector before you get in line to see the Prince.” A security guard said.

Anti started sweating when he saw the room PACKED with Iplier officers and guards. Each of them armed and a couple of them even had dogs out.

“Right this way please.” another guard nudged him a little to get him walking.

Anti swallowed hard and obeyed.

The security process was nerve racking, but after a couple checks in a metal detector they were allowed to enter the main room.

“You okay Anti? It looked like you were about to pass out.” Fiona whispered to him as she swung her purse back over her shoulder.

“Yeah I’m fine, just worried they would make me take off my hoodie.” Anti whispered back. When he saw a guard look at him suspiciously he unconsciously grabbed Jack’s shoulder.

“What?” Jack asked looking back.

“Nothing, just making sure you don’t tackle Prince Mark to the ground the second you see him.” Anti played it off as a joke, but didn’t take his hand off of Jack’s shoulder as they walked.

The main room was packed full of people. Most of them very wealthy, wearing expensive suits and dresses. Even the children were covered in designer shoes and jewelry. Anti had to marvel at the sight. Who in their right mind would put 12 year old kids in expensive suits?

“It might take awhile, they usually double check the perimeter before starting the show.” Jimmy squinted his eyes, looking up ahead. “Woah, how old is this kid? Like 13?”

“First of all, Prince Mark is 14 years old, secondly YOU CAN SEE HIM FROM HERE!” Jack looked around frantically. “Where?!” 

The crowd ahead all of the sudden erupted in cheers and movement blocking his view.

“Com’ on. I want to see him!” Jack jumped up and down desperate to get a look, but it was all in vein.

“Jimmy, can I get on your shoulders?” He asked.

“No, your to big.” Jimmy replied with a chuckle, “I’d drop you on your face.”

“What about if you and Anti held me up?” Jack pulled Anti closer together and before they could start protesting he was already climbing up.

“Ow, watch the wrist Jack.” Anti snapped lightly when Jack accidentally kicked his bad hand.

“This is technically harassment here.” Jimmy joked helping Jack get on their shoulders.

When Jack was fully seated on top he peered out into the crowd until he saw what he was looking for.

“Oh my god! It’s him!” he started rocking back and forth on their shoulders. “It’s him! I can see him!” he started frantically waving at the Prince.

All of the sudden Jack stopped moving all together and his arm dropped.

“What’s wrong?” Anti asked.

“He… looked at me… HE ACTUALLY WAVED BACK!”

Anti rolled his eyes.

Fiona was laughing and taking pictures with her disposable camera.

“Stop it.” Anti pouted and let Jack drop carefully back onto the floor.

“No, besides we’re gonna be here for awhile so you might as well get used to it.” Fiona opened her purse to reveal a few more cameras.

Anti groaned. This was going to be a looooooooooooong day.

 

“Finally! We’re almost to the front.” Sean said starting to get just as excited as Jack was. Anti was leaning most of his body weight on the wall. They were waiting in line for 4 hours, just to meet a 14 year old kid from Iplier…  _ great _ he thought sarcastically.

“I’m gonna find the bathroom.” Jimmy said as he walked away.

“Hurry up! We’re almost there!” Fiona shouted his direction.

Anti started to get worried, it was almost time for the meet and greet to end and Security started closing up the lines.

What if time ran out before they made it to the front?

“Oh my god we’re next!” Jack started getting jittery. “Do I look okay?” he asked Anti.

nti smirked and ruffled his hair, “You look  _ fine _ .”

“I’m  _ serious _ .” Jack crossed his arms, “Sean, do I look fine?”

“Well, you look like me, so it would be impossible for you not to look fine.” Sean joked.

“The next group can start walking to the gaming room.” A security guard said.

“Wait, one of our group members went to the bathroom-” Fiona tried to explain but the guard cut her off.

“I’m sorry Miss, we’re on a tight schedule. You can wait out here for them to return but I have to take the rest of you over to see the prince.” he said. “Right this way please.”

“We’ll be fine.” Anti said and hugged Fiona to help her nerves. Fiona hugged him back tightly. 

“I know you will be.” it sounded like she was about to cry.

Anti didn’t like how much this felt like a goodbye hug.

“Excuse me, but we need to keep moving.” the guard said. Anti let go of Fiona and followed the boys over to the room where they were going to meet Prince Mark.

Anti noticed something heavy in his pocket and when he looked to see what it was, it was the family cell phone.

“Alrighty, Prince Mark is in this room.” the guard smiled as he opened the door.

The three of them walked into the room, and sure enough sitting on a white couch was Prince Mark. Anti noticed that he looked a little tired.

“Hello, my name is Mark Fischback. What’s your names?” he got up to shake their hand.

Sean did so confidently with a smile. “I’m Sean.”

Anti didn’t want to shake his hand so he kept his hands in his hoodie pocket. Prince Mark got the hint and skipped over to shake Jack’s hands.

Jack froze and started shaking lightly.

“I-I… uh.”

Anti put a hand on Jack’s back and nudged him forward. Jack took a deep breath and shook the Prince’s hand.

“I’m Jack Mcloughlin.”

Prince Mark seemed to stop for a split second as he was shaking Jack’s hand. He just stared at Jack, like he was looking at a ghost.

“Woah, are all these games yours?” Sean pointed to the shelf by the TV, it seemed to break the Prince’s trance.

“Oh, uh yeah.” The Prince quickly averted his attention away from Jack. “Those are the ones my big brother lets me bring.”

“You have more?!” Sean’s jaw dropped.

Anti decided to sit down on the white couch to give his legs some rest after hours of standing he was tired; but he still watched the scene in front of him with a watchful eye.

“Yeah I do, you play any of them?” Prince Mark asked Sean.

“No, we can’t afford a consol.”

“Oh…” Prince Mark looked like he didn’t know what to say.

Jack was surprisingly quiet and Anti didn't like it. Hell, they drove and waited all day for this and he wasn’t doing anything! Anti knew that Jack was probably nervous out of his mind, but still! He did not wait all day for nothing!

The second he made eye contact with Jack he mouthed the words 'Talk. To. Him.'

Jack swallowed and nodded.

“Hey… uh, Prince Mark?” he walked up to him.

“Yeah?” the Prince responded.

“I uh… was wondering if... You wanted to have an arm wrestling match?”

“An…  _ arm wrestling match? _ ”

Jack’s face heated up. “Nevermind I-”

“No, it’s okay.” Prince Mark smiled, “I’ve never had that question asked to me at a meet and greet before. Sure, I’ll arm wrestle you. However I must warn you, I am the strongest man alive.” Prince Mark teased.

Jack rose to the challenge, “Oh yeah? But can you beat my plus one biceps!” He pulled his sleeve up and kissed his soulmate mark that was on his upper shoulder. It was a small brown box with a green eye in the center of it.

Prince Mark’s eyes got wide. “It’s you…”

“What?” Jack looked confused.

The prince quickly pulled his sleeve up to reveal the same soulmate mark on his shoulder.

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT THE FUCK! Anti’s shock quickly turned into adrenaline as jumped up off the couch and pulled Jack away.

“Okay, it looks like our times up. We’ll be on our-”

“Sir.” A security guard stopped him. “As the Prince’s soulmate we cannot allow him to leave. I ask that only one parent or guardian come with us for security reasons.”

Anti’s worst nightmare was coming to life.

“I have to ask, are you his parent or guardian?”

“Yes…” Anti half lied. Legally no, but other than that he was Jack’s guardian.

The guard seemed to sense his lie, but when he saw the way Jack clinged onto Anti’s side he seemed to soften up.

“Okay, I’ll need you two to exit out that door.”

“What about Sean?”

“He will go back out with the other two waiting outside. We can only allow a single parent go with the child for security reasons. Orders from the King. You will be taken to a private jet immediately, go through another security area and then you’ll be on your way to King Dark.”

Anti felt like his soul ran away from his body.

A guard started escorting Sean out of the room. “Wait… Anti! Jack!” he desperately tried to grab onto Anti, but the guard just picked him up and carried him out.

“Sean!” Anti tried to get by, but the huge guard in front of him stopped him.

“Sir, please go out the other door.” The guard started lightly pushing Anti back. Everything was happening to fast for Anti to do anything.

They were led out the back of the building were a car was waiting for them. Jack started shaking like a leaf and refused to let Anti go.

The Prince was escorted into another car, for a brief moment Anti saw the Prince look back at Jack before the car door was shut.

“Please get into the vehicle Sir.”

Anti knew that he didn’t have a choice and climbed into the car with Jack. The second the door shut Jack looked up at Anti, eyes watering.

“Will we ever see Fiona or Sean again?” he asked.

“Of course we will.” Anti held Sean’s hand. “The second we get to Iplier I’ll… talk to someone and we’ll go home.”

“Anti?”

“Yes Jack?”

“What about your…” Jack’s voice went down into a whisper. “...mark?”

“If we want to get home, we have to keep it a secret okay?” Anti whispered back. He wrapped his arms around Jack in a hug.

“I promise you, I’ll find a way to get us back home.”


	4. Chapter 4

Anti and Jack were taken to a private airport away from the huge city. Once again they had to endure countless security checks and questioning. Anti answered very briefly and only when he had to, Jack kept quiet most of the time.

“Prince Mark is already on board the jet, once you go through the background check, you’ll both be boarded on as well.” A security guard explained. “The ride to Iplier is about 4 hours.”

Anti nodded and walked closer to Jack as they came to a blond young lady behind a white desk.

“First and Last name please.” she asked politely, not looking away from her screen.

“Anti and Jack Mcloughlin.” Anti replied holding Jack’s hand tightly. Jack seemed to have calmed down after the questioning, but Anti wasn’t 100% certain.

The lady began typing into the computer, but after clicking a couple times her face fell into a frown.

Anti’s breath caught in his throat when it dawned on him what she was looking at. He knew that Jack’s record would be clean, but Anti’s records were full of arrests, tickets, and assaults. He went to jail a few times, but he always had Shela to bail him out. Well, before she died. Without Shela Anti knew he had to get his act together to support his siblings.

‘Shit.’ Anti thought. What if they didn’t let him go? No way he’d let Jack off Septic without him.

The lady looked like she was about to say something, but stopped when she saw all the security guards around them. All the Elite soldiers were heavily armed and looked like they would just snap at a moment notice,

Anti felt bad for her, the poor girl looked very scared.

“Ah yes.” she lied. “Anti Mcloughlin and Jack Mcloughlin.” she fake clicked couple times with the computer mouse and nodded.

“Okay, both of you are free to go.”

They continued walking down a long terminal. Nobody said a word and it was completely quiet until they walked by a large window that overlooked the take off and landing zones.

“Woah…” Jack slipped out of anti’s hand and walked over to look out the window. He smushed his face into the glass and started making weird faces.

“Jack stop it, you don’t know how many people have…” Anti’s jaw dropped when he saw the massive platinum jet right outside the window. It was looked like something out of a sci-fi movie.

“That is the jet you’ll be boarding.” A guard commented.

“Really?!” Jack started getting excited.

“It’s one of the fastest aircrafts in the world.” The guard seemed to take a liking to Jack and Anti didn’t know if he should be relieved or not.

“Wow, do you know how much money it costs to go for a fly around Septic?” Jack asked. “Like, how many house bills would we have to skip for just an hour?”

“The only people allowed to fly in a Royal Iplier Jet are members of the royal family and any guests of their choosing. As Prince Mark’s soulmate, you may fly in it whenever you want.”

“Really?!” Jack started rocking on his feet with excitement.

“Come on Jack, that’s enough looking at the big Jet.” Anti said pulling Jack along. He didn’t want Jack getting use to all this…  _ expensive  _ stuff. This was only a _ temporary _ visit. Anti reminded himself. The faster they go in and out the better.

 

The inside of the jet looked even more expensive than the outside. Red carpet, white couches, black bookshelves, and a huge flat screen TV. It looked like the ending of one of those house renovation shows.

Prince Mark was busy fixing his dyed red hair in a mirror to notice them at first. Occasionally mumbling to himself.

“Shit….. Stupid wind fluffing up my hair... the one day I meet my-”

Anti cleared his throat to get the Prince’s attention.

The Prince quickly turned around and tried to make smooth recovery.

“Hi!” his voice cracked making him face cringe up for a second. “I’m Mark, and you must be Sean- I MEAN JACK!”

“Yeah I know.” Jack rubbed the back of his head nervously. “We met like, an hour ago.”

“Right…” Mark’s voice trailed off.

It seemed like neither of them new what to say.

‘God this is awkward.’ Anti thought with a slight eye roll. ‘The sooner we get home the better.’

“Why don’t we sit down.” Mark suggested, tripping a bit on the glass coffee table as he walked towards the couch.

Anti would have laughed if they weren’t being forced to leave their home.

“There are seat belts in the couch.” Mark explained, “It’s kinda mandatory you have them on during the take off, but after the plane stables out you can take the belt off. I mean you’ve probably flown before so you already know-”

“Actually... this is my first time flying.” Jack admitted reluctantly.

“Oh.” Mark smiled warmly, “Then let me help you-”

Anti quickly reached over to clip in Jack’s seat belt before Mark could start getting closer to them.

“It’s a seat belt, not rocket science.” Anti commented harshly before shooting the Prince a glare. He didn’t need this Prince getting all lovey dovey with his little brother. Especially with him literally right next to them.

“Are you his dad?” Mark asked.

“He’s my older brother.” Jack replied. His face flushing with embarrassment.

“Oh that’s… cool. I have an older brother too.”

“I know.”  Jack said. “He’s the King.”

The conversation died off, and Anti felt like he was going to throw up from all this awkwardness…. No wait, the jet was starting to move.

Jack gasped and grabbed onto Mark’s hand on instinct when they started tilting upwards. Mark blushed a little when he felt the physical contact and intertwined their fingers.

Meanwhile Anti was grabbing onto the side of the couch for dear life, praying to all the gods he didn’t believe in that they wouldn’t just fall out of the sky.

“It’s okay!” Mark tried to reassure them. “In a couple minutes we’ll be cruising over the ocean!”

Anti felt his stomach drop a bit.

“Are you okay Anti?” Jack asked rubbing his arm.

“Yea…” Anti said not moving at all.

“Are you sure?” Jack asked again.

“If you’re feeling nauseous, I can ask the flight attendant to get you some medication.” Mark suggested, but Anti shook his head.

“I’m fine. Just... give me a minute.” Anti forced his body to relax.

Mark whispered something into Jack’s ear and Jack chuckled.

“What.” Anti snapped.

“Oh nothing…” Jack grinned, “Mark just said your like King Dark. Apparently he also gets motion sickness.”

“I am nothing like him!” Anti crossed his arms, ignoring the fluttering feeling in his stomach. He was going to meet him, he was actually going to meet him soulmate soon.

No.

He had to avoid Dark as much as possible and he had to find some way to get them home. So they could be happy.

The rest of the plane ride went very smoothly. Jack and Mark got over their original awkward encounter and started actually having decent conversations. Mark tried to talk to Anti, but Anti made it very clear that he didn’t want to talk.

Anti decided to lay back and try to get some sleep. A couple minutes later he heard the boys whispering and tuned his ears into their conversation.

“Why doesn’t your brother like me?” Mark asked softly.

“I don’t know, Anti doesn’t like a lot of people.” Jack whispered.

“Well, who does your brother like?”

“He likes our neighbors, Mandi, Jimmy, my other brother, and my sister.”

“What are they like?”

“It’s hard to explain. Maybe someday you’ll meet them.”

“I doubt it. My brother doesn’t like new people within the castle walls. He says it’s a ‘huge security breach’.”

If Anti had his eyes open, he would have rolled them. King Dark sounded like someone who carried a stick up his ass.

“It must be lonely not inviting any of your friends over to play video games.” Jack sounded sympathetic.

“It’s fine, sometimes when my brother’s not around my maid plays Fortnite with me.”

“Fortnite?”

“Yeah, the game? Fortnite?” Anti heard Mark get up from the couch and turn on the TV. “Come on, I’ll teach you.”

Anti started to get worried. What if Jack started getting attached to Prince Mark? What if Jack decided he wanted to stay? No, that’s impossible. Jack loves Sean and Fiona more than anything. He would choose them over Prince Mark any day… right.

“I see a guy about… uhhh…. North-west-ish to us.” Mark commented.

“Should we go get him?” Jack asked.

“Nah, I think we should focus on getting some more supplies, but we should definitely keep an eye on him.”

“Aye Captain!” Jack did an over exaggerated solute.

Anti should stop them from bonding to close, but something deep inside of him was stopping him from doing anything. Jack was a kid, he deserved to have some real fun.

He just watched them from afar. Laughing a few times when Mark’s character died.

“Awwww come onnnnnnn, we were so close!” Mark complained tossing his controller down.

Jack laughed “If only they knew who you were. They’d probably shit their pants.”

“Yeah, only cause my brother’s the King of Iplier…” Mark’s voice sounded…  _ different _ . It made Anti perk up a little bit in alarm.

“Are you okay?” Jack asked. “Should we try again?”

“Yeah, sorry about that. I just zoned out a little.” Mark picked his controller off the ground. “We should try and land in a different spot, away from people.”

Anti knew that Mark was hiding something. Being a big brother for so long made him able to pick up on the small social cues. The Prince was definitely insecure about something, and it had something to do with his older brother.

Your soulmate.

Anti shook his head. No, they could not be soulmates. Their social classes were just to different. Dark was a king; born and raised to take care of a country. Anti was raised to steal, beg, work, do anything to survive.

He would be the worst Queen ever.

And the worst soulmate ever.

 

“We’re preparing the aircraft for landing. I ask that you put all seatbelts on until the jet comes to a complete stop.” The pilot announced through the speakers in the walls of the plane.

“Finally.” Anti said quietly to himself. He hoped he’d never have to fly again.

“Oh! I completely forgot!” Mark hit a small button on the wall. “You can have the best view of the city from the sky!”

The wall in front of them opened up to reveal a giant window overlooking Iplier.

“Woah…” Jack’s jaw dropped. “And I thought Northside was beautiful…”

Anti was left speechless.

The Prince smiled at their reactions. “Gentleman, Iet me officially welcome you to Youtube. The capital of Iplier”

The buildings were like giant silver pillars coming up from the ground surrounded by lights and smaller jets cruising around the skyline. The people on the ground looked like tiny ants walking around the floor of the city, living out their lives like everything around them was normal. Like it was normal to live in a building taller than a mountain, or to have private jets and drones circle above you like birds in the sky.

It also had an abundance of greenery along the walls; plants on top of the giant buildings, trees planted along the sidewalks, and giant solar panels along a few of the tallest buildings. It looked like a perfect Utopia.

It definitely put the Northside of Septic to shame.

“Sorry your highness, but I have to ask you to close the window for landing.” The pilot said through the speakers.

“Aw, it was just getting fun.” Mark hit the button again. “The castle isn’t located in the city. It was built in a small valley just outside of the city. It’s surrounded by mountains so it’s very difficult to get their by car, but there is a landing area right behind the main building so most people that do come here have to be flown in.”

“Why?” Jack asked.

“Why what?” Mark looked confused.

“Why is the castle in such a remote location?”

“That’s where it’s always been. There use to be roads coming in and out of the castle, but my brother closed them down after…”

“After what?” Jack pushed.

The Prince didn’t say anything, he just looked down at the red carpet and started playing with the little bits of material between his feet.

“Jack, why don’t you call Kev and Vi and tell them where we are.” Anti took the flip phone out of his pocket and tossed it over to Jack.

“Oh, okay.” Jack slowly dialed the number and put it up to his ear.

“Hey Vi… I just wanted to tell you that I’m Prince Mark’s soulmate and that Anti and I are going to the royal castle-”

“WHAT, ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!” Veronica's voice was so loud it could be heard from the other side of the room.

“Yeah… Anti will call you later.” Jack quickly hung up the phone and tossed it back to Anti.

“What the hell was that?!” Anti yelled. “‘Anti will call you later?’ Like hell I will!”

“What else was I supposed to say! You told me to call her!” Jack’s voice cracked a little.

“Yeah, so that  _ I  _ wouldn’t have to tell her!”

The jet suddenly dipped downwards causing Anti to grip the couch for dear life again.

“Not again.” he silently groaned to himself.

“Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it after awhile.” Mark commented and held Jack’s hand again.

It wasn’t long before they were on the ground, along with Anti’s breakfast.

A woman with long dyed hair and a leather jacket came to greet them when they walked off the jet.

“Hello, my name is Jenna Marbles. I’m Prince Mark’s manager.” she greeted them. “I am here to escort Jack and…” she looked down at her clipboard, eyes squinted slightly. “... Anti? Is that even a real name?”

“This coming from someone whose king is named Dark.” Anti crossed his arms and shot a glare over to Jenna. She didn’t seem to be phased at all.

“Touche. Well  _ Anti _ , I’m here to escort you and Jack over to the wardrobe department so you may be fitted and changed into something proper. King Dark is the pickiest person I’ve ever met, trust me, you do not want to show up wearing… this.” she pinched Anti’s hoodie, running her fingers over the dark fabric. “Is this Nike?”

“No.” Anti replied.

“Oh... I almost forgot. Prince Mark, your brother wanted to speak to you and asked me to tell you to go to his office. You two follow me.” Jenna swiftly turned and started walking towards the castle. Her heels clicking against the stone path.

Anti and Jack followed close behind her, admiring the old stone carvings and statues in the back of the castle.

Anti paused when he saw one of the carvings look familiar. It looked very tribal, like black flames surrounding a sword with a snake wrapped around the hilt.

He felt his back and realized that it was his soulmate mark.

“Anti! You’ll receive a tour of the grounds tomorrow!” Jenna shouted from somewhere far away. “Right now you need to get your butt to wardrobe!”

Anti sighed and kept walking. He’d look around the place later.

 

“Sir, I can fit you right after-”

“No.” Anti kept his arms crossed over his chest. Not moving an inch.

“But Sir…” the man kept arguing. “The King is very picky about cleanliness and I don’t think He would approve of your street attire.”

“Sounds like not my problem.” Anti looked over to check on Jack. 

Jack was currently surrounded by beauty professionals measuring him, making him try on clothes, spraying his hair. It made Anti  _ very  _ uneasy, but he wanted Jack to have the full royal treatment while he was here. A pleasant memory to keep of his childhood that not many children get to have.

“Sir I-”

Anti cut him off with a hard glare. “Speak to me again and I’ll meet the King without  _ any _ clothes.”

The man chuckled at first, thinking it was a joke, but when he saw that Anti wasn’t laughing, his laugh died off. Not knowing exactly what to do, the man just walked away.

Anti let out a small sigh of relief. No way would he change in front of anybody. If anyone saw the mark on his back… he didn’t even want to think about what would happen.

“How do I look?”

Anti was awaken from his thoughts when Jack bounced his way to him. He was dressed in a light grey suit with a small green bow tie to match his hair.

“You look great.” Anti ruffled Jack’s green hair.

Jack laughed. “I feel all fancy and  _ sophisticated _ .” he showed off by posing in front of one of the many mirrors along the walls.

“Okay Mr. Fancy pants, enough looking at yourself in the mirror.” Anti lightly flicked the back of his little brother’s head.

Jack stuck his tongue out at Anti and rubbed the back of his head. “Aren’t you getting dressed up?”

Anti shook his head.

“Oh, it’s because of your-”

Anti quickly put his hand over Jack’s mouth. “Yes, it’s because of my…  _ back problem. _ I do not want anyone to know about it so I need to you  _ never  _ mention it, not even with Prince Mark. Do you understand?”

Jack nodded and Anti moved his hand away.

“Okay, King Dark and Prince Mark are in the Royal dining room.” Jenna said walking up to them. She raised her eyebrow when she saw Anti still in the black hoodie and ripped jeans.

“You haven’t been fitted yet?”

“No, and I never will.” Anti’s voice left no room for another argument.

“Okay, my job is to escort the both of you to the royal dining hall where the Prince and the King are waiting for you. This is a private dinner with the king so you will be patted down before you enter the room. Make sure you have nothing in your pockets, blah blah blah. Let’s start walking.” Jenna quickly turned to lead the way.

While she was turned, Anti quickly slipped the small flip phone he had into his sock before following her. He didn’t trust anyone in the castle with his only contact to home.

“So Jack, what do you think about Iplier so far?” Jenna asked as they walked up the giant marble staircase to the second floor of the castle.

“It’s very… big. Way bigger than Septic.” Jack replied. Looking at the portraits of Royal couples that lined the hall.

Anti was behind them, also admiring the Royal family portraits that went back hundreds of years. With each generation, the paintings got clearer and clearer until the last one was just a giant photograph of King Dark’s parents.

In the picture, the queen was looking down at a baby in her arms.

“Alright, this is where I leave you too.” Jenna smiled at Anti and shook his hand. “It was a pleasure to meet you.” right before she walked past Anti she whispered in his ear. “Careful with Dark, he does not forgive very easily.”

Before Antiu could reply, she was already gone.

“Excuse me sir. I need you to put both hands on you head. The pat down will only take a minute.” A guard instructed.

Anti slowly raised his arms at rested them on top of his head. While he was being patted down by two huge bodyguards, Jack was allowed to just walk right into the dining room.

Anti’s breath caught in his throat when he felt a guard pat down his legs. He really didn’t want them to find his cell phone.

To Anti’s luck, the guard didn’t make him take off his shoes or pat his socks. He just got up off the floor and smiled at him.

“Your all clean, please go in.” the guard stepped aside and opened the door.

When Anti walked into the room, the first thing he noticed was Dark sitting at the head of a long black table.

Their eyes met for a minute, but to Anti it felt like an eternity. There was no questioning it now, this was his soulmate. 

Mandi wasn’t kidding when she described the feeling of meeting your soulmate. Anti’s heart felt like it was going to burst from his chest. He wanted to just run up and touch Dark’s face just to make sure he was real.

“Anti.” Jack whispered yelled from across the room. “You can sit down.”

Anti was broken from his love trance when Jack pulled out the chair next to him and patted the seat. Prince Mark was seated directly across from Jack, on the other side of the King.

Anti walked slowly to his chair, careful not to make eye contact with the King. He could feel Dark’s eyes on him every step of the way. It was slightly terrifying.

When Anti sat down in his seat, the King cleared his throat.

“Welcome to Iplier, my name is Dark Fischbach.” The King extended his hand across the table to Anti.

Anti didn’t want to shake his hand, but King Dark was persistent and didn’t move his hand until Anti hesitantly shook it.

His hand was like smooth butter against Anti’s rough calluses.

“You look a little young to be Jack’s father.”

“I’m his brother.” Anti’s voice cracked. He mentally cursed himself for it.

The King chuckled. “How about we get some drinks. Ethan!”

With a clap of a hand, a butler swiftly walked over to Dark. His dyed blue hair was neatly combed back and his posture was as clean as his uniform.

“What can I get you your highness?” Ethan asked.

“Could you get all of us a glass of water and a menu for tonight's dinner?” Dark relaxed in his extravagant chair, careful not to tip the golden crown on top of his head. The Butler bowed once more before rushing out of the room to deliver the order.

Anti swallowed, his mouth suddenly becoming very dry. He felt extremely unprepared and out of his league sitting at the same table as the King of Iplier. It was like the King’s aurora was taking up the whole room, leaving none of it for Anti.

“So, I was informed that you come from Septic.” Dark turned his attention back over to Jack and Anti.

Anti nodded, not trusting his voice at the moment.

“Y-Yeah, it’s not much…” Jack said quietly.

“I’ve seen pictures. It looks like a beautiful place to live.” Dark commented,“Especially with those snowy mountains in the North.” 

“Oh, we don’t live in the North- OW!”

Anti cut Jack off by kicking his leg under the table. “Shut up.” he whispered low enough so only Jack could hear.

Dark ignored Anti.

“What do you mean? Where else is there to live on Septic besides…” Dark paused when the realization hit him.

“You two come from the Southside.” Mark’s eyes widened in shock.

Jack realized his mistake and looked down. 

‘So Southside has a terrible reputation even outside of Septic.’ Anti thought. He heard rumors that foreigners called it ‘the place where thieves and murderers thrive’. If anyone asked Anti if that was true, he’d tell them it depends where you are in Southside.

“Your waters your highness.” Ethan broke the silence.

A line of waiters and waitresses came into the room single file with silver trays. Each tray had a glass of ice water and a menu.

“Thank you Ethan, I’ll call you in when we’re ready to order.” Dark said, taking a sip of his water.

Ethan bowed again before leaving the room.

A heavy silence filled the room as everyone except Anti picked up the menu and started reading it. The new tension in the air didn’t help.

“Pst, Anti…” Jack whispered, hiding his face with the giant menu.

Anti slightly leaned closer to hear his brother better.

“I don’t know what any of this shit is.”

“Just pick something you can pronounce and watch your fucking language.” Anti whisper hissed back, a little louder than he meant to.

Dark cleared his throat. “Have you already decided what you want to eat Anti?”

“I’m not hungry.” Anti shoved his hands in the pocket of his hoodie.

“Alright…” Dark’s voice seemed a little to calm. Anti had no idea why it bothered him.

“Dark, can I have the grilled cheese again?” Mark asked.

“No, the pilot told me you ordered grilled cheese 3 dinners in a row. Pick something else.” Dark replied not even looking up from his menu.

“What about the spaghetti?” Mark tried.

“Can you try to order something with a little meat and vegetables on it?” Dark set his menu down in front of him.

“Spaghetti has meatballs.” Mark reasoned.

Dark sighed and grabbed the bridge of his nose.

“Fine, you can have the spaghetti.” he gave in.

Anti stopped himself from smiling. He knew the feeling of younger brothers finding loopholes. It made him feel nostalgic.

Dark clapped his hands. “Ethan, we’re ready to order.” his commanding voice boomed through the room.

Ethan came into the room with pen and paper.

“I’ll have the roasted lemon salmon with a side of caviar and steamed vegetables over white rice.” Dark handed his menu over to Ethan.

“And what will you have Prince Mark?”

“Spaghetti.” Mark smiled and handed over his menu.

“With a side of carrots and cucumber.” Dark quickly added making Mark glare at him.

“And what will the guests be having tonight?” Ethan looked over at Anti and Jack.

“I… uh, will have the same thing Mark ordered.” Jack set his menu on top of Anti’s.

Anti handed both of them over to Ethan.

“And what will you be having Sir?”

“Oh, I’m not-”

“He’ll have the same thing I’m having.” Dark interrupted.

It was Anti’s turn to shoot him a glare.

“Alrighty, the food shall be ready momentarily.” Ethan bowed before exiting the room.

“I don’t allow my guests to starve themselves.” Dark commented.

“How very generous of you…” Anti said gritting his teeth together. God, Dark was such a prick.

“So Jack, tell me about your family.” Dark smiled at Jack. He wanted to learn about his little brother’s soulmate.

“Anti’s my older brother, Fiona is my older sister, and Sean is my twin brother.” Jack said.

“What are your siblings like?” Dark asked.

“Well, Sean is a bit on the nerdy side, Fiona is free spirited, and Anti… cares more than people think.”

Anti was surprised at Jack’s answer.

“That’s nice.” Dark looked over at Anti.

“Am I out of line to ask about your parents?”

Anti pressed his lips together and didn’t respond. Jack also went quiet.

“I’ll take that as a yes…” Dark sighed, “I apologise for bringing up a…  _ sensitive  _ topic. I know what it’s like to lose-”

“My parents aren’t dead.” Anti interrupted.

“Well then where are they?” Mark asked curiously.

“We don’t know…” Jack played with the ice cubes in his water. Distracting himself from the conversation.

“Why are you asking so many questions about my family?” Anti’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“I just want to know my brother’s soulmates family.” Dark defended himself. “I’ve seen your background checks Mr. McLoughlin and I need to know that I can trust you and your brother not to cause trouble within my castle.”

This made Anti’s blood start to boil. He didn’t care who Dark was, he wasn’t going to take being called a thief sitting down.

“Well then why don’t you just send us back to Septic?” Anti got up out of his seat. “If your just going to see us as criminals-”

“Sit down.” Dark’s voice was hard and commanding. “There's no need to get  _ dramatic _ .”

Anti couldn’t resist the urge to please his soulmate. Slowly against his will, he sat back down in his seat.

“Safety is my number one concern here.” The King’s voice went calm again. “Mark, why don’t you show Jack your room. I’ll have your dinner set there when it’s ready.”

“Okay… lets go Jack.” Mark slid out of his chair and walked out of the room. Jack followed close behind reluctantly. He didn’t want to leave his brother, but he also didn’t want to upset the King. Anti nodded his head, urging his brother to go on with Mark while he had a talk with Dark.

Once they were out of the room, Dark continued talking.

“I do background checks on  _ everyone _ who comes in and out. Against my advisers wishes, I allowed you to have dinner with me despite your violent track record.”

“Oh, I’m flattered  _ your majesty. _ ” Anti spat sarcastically, “The great King of Iplier graciously took me from my home and then acts like I should be grateful for it.”

“I am offering Jack the chance to live in one of the safest places in the world, were he can get the best private tutors, the best food, the best clothes- AND you may still raise him as his guardian.”

“And what happens when he becomes an adult? What will you do with me then? Kick me out?” Anti yelled.

“I don’t know what will happen in the future, but yell at me again and I will  _ personally  _ throw you out of my castle!” Dark snapped.

Anti clenched his hands under the table. He had to stop himself from punching the King in his perfectly straight teeth.

“Your dinner your majesty.” Ethan placed a silver tray of salmon in front of the king and Anti.

“Thank you, please send Prince Mark and Jack’s food to Mark’s bedroom.” Dark smiled as if everything was fine.

But the second Ethan walked out of the room his expression fell and he looked towards Anti with a hardened glare.

He was surprised when Anti glare back with the same intensity.

“What if I want you to talk us back to Septic?” Anti kept his voice calm and even.

“I will do everything in my power to make sure my brother is happy.” Dark said as he started cutting up his salmon. “I hope you intend to strive for the same goal.”

That was the end of that conversation.

Anti’s stomach growled at the scent of freshly cooked fish. He was so hungry, but apart of him didn’t want the King’s stupid handout. He pushed it away from him to help with the temptation.

“Just eat it. If you don’t it would only be thrown away.” Dark muttered pushing the plate back towards Anti.

Without saying anything, Anti started eating.

When he was done, he was escorted to a guest area of the castle. Where a room was prepared for him.

It was a decent sized room with a balcony that overlooked the side of the castle that had an outdoor pool. The bed was king sized with beautiful white sheets and 5 soft pillows.

Anti had never been so tempted to jump on a bed in his whole life, but he wasn’t in the mood.

So much had happened all in one day his mind felt exhausted. He just let his body fall onto the bed face first.

He wanted to scream with frustration. Stupid King.

It wasn’t long before the door behind him opened and a familiar voice filled the room.

“Anti? Are you here?”

He signed in relief when he realized it was Jack’s voice.

“Yeah I’m here.” Anti rolled over on the bed so his back was rested on the pillows. Jack walked over, dressed in red pajamas.

“Mark let me borrow his pj’s. He said that after the tour tomorrow that I’d be able to go clothes shopping.” Jack crawled onto the bed and snuggled up to a pillow right by Anti’s head.

“Are you okay Anti?” Jack asked.

“Yeah, just… can’t believe what happened today.” Anti replied, really craving a cigarette.

“Me neither… it’s like a dream come true.” Jack yawned. “But I miss Sean… and Fiona… and Jimmy.”

“Don’t worry bud, I’ll take care of everything.” Anti picked Jack up and tucked him in under the covers. It was getting late and he knew that Jack would need all the sleep he could get for tomorrow. “Just focus on making the best of our situation.”

“Anti?”

“Yeah.”

“Does King Dark hate us now that he knows we come from Southside?”

Anti paused for a moment before answering. “No, he’s just a tight ass about his precious  _ security _ . Don’t Mark I called him that.” Anti booped Jack’s nose right before crawling to the otherside of the bed to sleep.

“Anti?”

“This is the last question I answer before we sleep.” Anti grunted, pulling the blanket over his body.

“Do you hate King Dark?”

“Yes.”


	5. Chapter 5

The vibrating sound of a cell phone woke Anti from his sleep. He lazily rolled over and reached for his phone.

 

_ 5 missed calls from Jimmy _

 

Anti hit the green button and brought the flip phone up to his ear. “Hello?”

“Anti? Is that you?” Fiona’s voice on the other end sounded frantic.

“Yeah it’s me.” Anti rubbed his eyes and yawned, still feeling exhausted. He didn’t sleep very well on the cushy bedding.

“Are you guys okay? Did Dark see you? When are you guys coming home?-”

“Fiona.” Anti interrupted her bombardment of questions. “I just woke up.” he quietly cleared his throat and looked over to see Jack still sound asleep, curled up in the beautiful sheets. 

“Yeah, we’re fine.”

He heard Fiona sigh in relief. “Thank god. I was so worried... Hold on, I’m gonna put you on speaker phone.”

“Hey, how’s royal life treatin’ you?” Jimmy asked.

“Very well, considering that Dark and I… aren’t on the best of terms.” Anti scratched his chin scruff.

“Anti. What. did. you. do.” Fiona’s voice when harsh, like she was prepared to start ripping her hair out of her scalp.

“It was just a little…ah...  _ disagreement _ -”

“ _ Just _ a disagreement with the most powerful person in the fucking world.”

Anti could tell that Fiona was about to crush Jimmy’s phone in her hand.

“Dark has the power to  _ execute _ the both of you. You can’t make him angry.”

Anti rolled his eyes. “It’s a little too late for that Fe. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t like me as much as I don’t like him.”

“Fix it Anti! I don’t care what you do. Work in the kitchens, rub his back- suck his dick if you have to.”

Anti nearly choked on his own spit. “Fiona I-”

He was interrupted by a loud knock on the door.

“Fiona I’ll have to call you back.” Anti shut the phone and quickly hid it under the bed before running over to answer the door.

A security guard wearing a slick black suit greeted him. His dyed purple hair was combed back very neatly.

“I am here to deliver a message from his majesty King Dark. He would like to meet you for lunch in the royal gardens at 12:30 after your tour of the palace with Jenna Marbles.” the man handed Anti a card with a number on it. “If you need any help, my names Julian, I’m head of security here.”

“Alright…” Anti put the card in his hoodie pocket. Already planning to toss it in the garbage later.

The guard turned to walk away but quickly stopped himself. “Oh! I almost forgot. Your breakfast will be ready in about 10 minutes. Today the palace is serving toast and sausage with orange juice. However, if you prefer something else-”

“That will be fine.” Anti interrupted. He was starting to get annoyed with all these servants, he wasn’t even sure why.

“Alright, a maid will be by shorty to drop off fresh clothes for both of you. In case you haven’t noticed, the suite bathroom is stocked with some cosmetics to freshen up. All courtesy of his majesty King Dark. If you have any problems with your care and service please inform-.”

“We’ll be fine, thank you for the message.” Anti quickly shut the door before the guard could continue talking his head off. ‘I swear if I hear someone say his majesty King Dark one more time, I’m going to lose it.’ he thought

“Anti? Who was that?” Jack asked, still half asleep.

“No one.” Anti walked back and lightly shook Jack’s shoulder. “Come on, time to wake up.”

“Five more minutes.” Jack rolled over and yawned.

“How about you get up now before I toss ya into the neighbors pool.”

Jack chuckled tiredly and hugged his pillow. “We aren’t even in Septic anymore, you can’t toss me in- ANTI NO!”

Jack shrieked as Anti picked him up and started walking towards the balcony.

“I will find the nearest pool and toss your sorry ass in it.” Anti laughed when Jack started squirming.

“This isn’t funny anymore Anti.” Jack pouted.

“It is to me.” Anti gave in and let Jack go onto the floor. He ruffled Jack’s already messy green hair. “Now go to the bathroom and get ready, breakfast is being served soon.”Jack playfully punched Anti in the gut before walking to the bathroom. Anti had to admit, that punch actually stung a little bit. 

While he waited for his turn in the bathroom, Anti walked out onto the balcony and looked out into the tree line that surrounded the palace. A sad feeling started to wash over him, like a smooth wave hitting the side of a beach. Jack and Sean were growing up faster, soon they’d be like Fiona and simply not need him anymore.

 

Where would that leave Anti?

 

“Oh my god! Anti look at this toilet! It has gold on the sides!” Jack’s voice broke Anti out of his sad thoughts.

He quickly shook off the feeling and went to the bathroom to check out what Jack was freaking out about. He walked in on Jack knelt by the toilet, already trying to pick bits of the embroidered gold off the lid.

“Jesus Christ, people have to much money.” Anti muttered and took a good look around the bathroom. There was even golden designs on the side of the tub right next to the beautifully white tiled shower.

“You think we can send some of this back for Fiona and Sean?” Jack asked.

Anti’s eyes went wide and he quickly slapped Jack’s picking hand away. “No!”

“Com’ ooooon” Jack rolled his eyes. “They have so much here Ant, they’re not going to notice a few of these fancy gold pieces missing from their toilets.”

“We are not stealing, end of discussion. Just hurry up and get ready.” Anti pulled Jack up off the floor. “You better not hog the bathroom like at home. I want a turn to shit in a gold toilet.”

Jack laughed. “Do you think they’ll let us take one home? We could charge people 50 bucks to use it.”

“Nah, the second the neighborhood found out we had a golden shitter we’d have it stolen. Now hurry the fuck up and brush your teeth.” Anti walked out of the bathroom to give Jack his privacy.

He quickly got his phone out from under the bed and sent Jimmy a message.

 

_ I’ll call you later _

_ Don’t worry about us _

_ We’ll be fine  _

 

It wasn’t long before maids were coming in and out of the room with carts of food on silver trays and racks of expensive clothing. Jenna walked in with them and dressed Jack in some beige pants and a clean white button up shirt. Anti refused to except the suit she had picked out for him.

After they finished eating their giant breakfast, Jenna took out a small pocket book and handed it to Anti.

“This has mostly everything you’ll need to know about the palace. It even has some of the palace’s history in it.” Jenna said, taking a bite of her piece of toast. “If we have time, maybe after your lunch with the king I can sneak both of you out into the forest and you can see my favorite place here.” her voice got quiet. “Technically I’m not supposed to know about it, but the Prince told me about this hot spring in a cave. It’s a special place where Iplier Kings took their soulmates to…  _ consummate _ their marriage.”

“That’s… nice.” Anti said awkwardly, suddenly finding the ice cubes in his drink very entertaining.

“Of course that tradition ended a few generations ago, but it’s still a beautiful place. Don’t tell anyone I know where it is.” she pointed her fork at both of them. “And don’t tell anyone I told you about it.”

“Anti, what does  _ consummate _ mean?” Jack asked.

“Uh, ask me when your 13.”

 

The tour of the palace was long and boring in Anti’s opinion. Who the hell needed this many rooms? Anti’s whole neighborhood could fit in the palace and be completely accommodated for.

“And over here is where the Prince has his private lessons with his tutors. You’ll start your schooling here next week once we get all of your school records from Septic.” Jenna said with a smile directed towards Jack “You can go in right now if you want to, the Prince should be on his break.”

Jack smiled and looked up at Anti with pleading eyes.

Anti sighed, he should really say no. “Fine.”  
“Yes!” Jack hugged Anti’s arm tightly. “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”

Anti shoved Jack towards the door. “Just don’t do anything you wouldn’t do in front of me.”

“Anti, you should start heading towards the royal gardens, the King is waiting for you at the gazebo.” Jenna said. “If you don’t go willingly I’ll have to ask Julian to escort-”

“I’m going Jeez.” Anti rolled his eyes. “I have a few things I want to say to the King anyways.”

“Don’t disrespect him. You could be punished for it” Jenna warned.

Anti chuckled, “If he was going to punish me, he would have done it by now.”

“Whatever, just get to the royal gardens. You're already late.”

 

Anti first took a stop at the weird rock carving in the back of the castle. It was fairly close to the royal gardens so Anti didn’t worry to much about having an excuse to be there.

He was amazed on how detailed it was. Whoever edged the stone must have been really talented. Anti took out the small book Jenna gave him and started to flip through it, looking for information on why a rock with the King’s soulmate mark was just sitting behind the castle. After a few minutes of searching he finally saw it near the back of the book.

“I see your enjoying yourself.”

Anti knew that deep voice to well. He quickly shoved the book in his pocket before turning around to face the King himself.

“Did Julian inform you that I requested your attendance for lunch?” Dark crossed his arms, not looking happy at all.

“He did…” Anti kept his voice steady and strong. Not willing to give Dark an inch of dominance over him.

“Then why are you here?”

“None of your business.”

“It is my business when  _ your  _ in  _ my _ …”  Dark began to raise his voice, but stopped to calm his temper.

“Look, this is technically my house.” Dark said in a fake nice voice. “You must follow by my rules-”

“I would like to go home to  _ my  _ house.” Anti cut him off. “With my little brother.”

Dark glared at him for a second, but quickly relaxed his face to cover it up.

“Why don’t we discuss that matter over lunch. My treat.” he smiled warmly, but Anti saw right through it.

“Fine, lead the way.” Anti crossed his arms.

 

Dark lead Anti to a large white gazebo in the center of the garden. It was surrounded by red rose bushes and streams of lights that were turned off for the day. On the glass table were trays of food that looked like they came directly out of a cooking magazine.

“Please sit.” Dark politely walked up and pulled out a chair for Anti.

Anti was about to refuse, but decided against it and sat down. He needed to somehow get King dark to like him so they could leave.

Once King Dark seated himself at the other end of the short table he looked over at Anti with an expression Anti couldn’t read.

“I know yesterday we didn’t have the best… introductions. I was hoping that we could get the chance to start over. For the sake our little brothers.”

Anti nodded in agreement, however he wasn’t ready to back down.

“I believe that it would be best if we went back to Septic.” Anti said, trying his hardest to sound proper for once in his life.

“And why do you say that?” Dark asked.

‘Cause my family needs me. Cause Kevin and Veronica are having twins in the shadiest area in Septic. Cause we’re poor and I need to help out with the bills. Cause I’m your soulmate but am afraid of change... Wait what?!’ Anti thought, but didn’t dare say it outloud. Sure Dark knew they came from the Southside, but he didn’t need to know how bad they had it. ‘The less he knows the better.’

“Septic is where we belong.”

“Not according to fate.” Dark leaned back in his chair and looked around the garden. “Jack is Mark’s soulmate.They need to stay together in order to be happy. To be with someone they can grow to love. It’s a very beautiful thing.”

“Like your one to talk.” Anti shot a glare over at the King. “You don’t even know who your soulmate is.”

The King glared back. “Your right, I don’t know where my soulmate is or what it’s personally like to have one, but I can feel that they’re close and-” he quickly shut his mouth.

‘Closer than you think.’ Anti almost laughed, but kept his composure.

“... I just know that soulmates need each other to be happy and I want my brother to be happy.” Dark grabbed a glass of water from the table and took a sip.

“I also want my brother to be happy, and I know he will be happiest in Septic.” Anti crossed his arms. The tension between them began to rise again.

“If your so sure, why don’t we make a deal.” Dark set his glass back down on the table. “You both will stay here for three months and if I can change your mind after those three months, you both have to stay”

“And if I decide to leave, will you take us home?” Anti asked, making sure there were no tricks up Dark’s sleeve.

“If you still think Jack is better off in Septic… I will personally take you both home in my jet.” Dark said reluctantly.

“You’ll take both of us right back to Septic, no fighting, no loopholes?”

Dark nodded. “All you have to do is enjoy your time here for 3 months. Now do we have a deal?” he held out his hand.

Anti nodded. “Deal.” He spat in his hand and shook Dark’s hand. Dark quickly wrenched his hand out of Anti’s and wiped it on a napkin.

“That was completely unnecessary.”

“I know.” Anti chuckled and began to relax in his chair. He winced when he accidentally bumped his wrist against the table, completely forgetting that he sprained his wrist a couple days ago at the roller rink.

“Do you need to go to the medical wing?” Dark asked. “That brace looks pretty worn out.”

“It’s fine.” Anti said quickly.

Dark didn’t buy it. “Come with me.” he got up from his seat. “You need to get that checked out by a doctor and I can’t have a palace guest walking around with that on.”

Anti rolled his eyes and followed Dark all the way to the medical wing of the castle. At least this way he could get Veronica a new wrist brace, maybe even a better one.

 

“Excuse me Amy, is Dr. Lester busy right now? My friend here needs some medical attention.” 

“I’ll call him right now.” Amy smiled and grabbed the office phone from her desk. “Excuse me Dr. Lester, the King requests your assistance...” she hung up the phone and turned her chair to face Dark.

“The Doctor will see you in room B4.”

“Excellent. Thank you Amy.” Dark grabbed Anti’s hand and escorted him down the hall.

Once they got to room B4, Dark sat down on a chair right by the door.

“I’ll wait out here until your done.”

“Thanks.” Anti said sarcastically walking into the room. He secretly flipped the King off in his hoddie.

He was greeted by a tall man with black hair. “Hello, my name is Doctor Philip Lester, but you may call me Dr. Lester.” he held out his hand.

Anti shook it lightly, not saying anything. He noticed part of a soulmate mark on the Doctor’s neck, hiding under his white uniform but couldn’t tell what it was.

“Please take a seat on the counter.”

Anti did what he was told.

The Doctor walked over to a computer and logged in.“Okay, do you have an account with MyHealthOnline?” he asked.

“No…”

“Would you like to start one? It’s very efficient. If you go to any Doctor in Iplier they can immediately look up your medical information. I think they also have this feature in Septic, but I’m not sure.”

Anti had never been to a doctor before, so he wasn’t sure either. If Septic did have it, it was probably for the Northside only. “Sure.”

“Okay, I’m going to need to ask you a few questions.” The doctor adjusted his glasses.

“Your first and last name?”

“Anti Mcloughlin.”

“Have you found your soulmate?”

“No.” Anti lied.

“Are you allergic to anything?”

“No.”

“Any phobias?”

“No.”

“STD’s?”

“No?”

“Are you sexually active?”

“Does oral count?”

“Technically yes.”

“Then yes.” Anti began to fiddle with the edge of his black hoodie. Answering all these personal questions made him very uncomfortable, but as long as the doctor didn’t make him take his hoodie off he was fine with it.

“Alrighty… What’s your Doctor’s name?”

“I don’t have a doctor.”

“When was the last time you went to a clinic or saw a doctor? Do you remember their name?”

“Uh… does the day I was born count?” 

“You should see a doctor at least once a year for a check up.” Dr. Lester advised, clearly shocked with Anti’s answer. “Have you had any vaccination shots?”

“No.”

“Are you currently taking any medication?”

“No.”

“Do you smoke?”

“... sometimes.” Anti answered reluctantly.

“Do your parents smoke?”

“Yes.”

“Are your parents alive?”

“I don’t fuckin’ know.”

“Okay, and you’re here because of a sprained wrist, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“How did this happen? How long ago?”

“A couple days ago my brother had a roller skating birthday party, I fell.”

“Okay. Please pull up your sleeve so that I may have a look.”

Anti did as he was told and pulled up his black sleeve. Dr. Lester walked over and took off his wrist brace.

“This brace is to big for you. Who prescribed this to you?”

“Nobody.”

“Alright.” Dr. Lester didn’t push for an answer. “ tell me if this hurts.” He began to apply pressure to the center of his wrist. Anti winced and began to pull away on instinct.

“Well it’s definitely swollen. I want to take an X-ray of the area to make sure we aren’t dealing with a broken bone.”

The Doctor opened a cabinet and took out a strange looking machine with what looked like some sort of scanner attached to it.

“This is the latest in medical technology. They most likely don’t have this in Septic.” He plugged it in and turned it on.

“Hand me your wrist and I can have your results in a minute.”

Anti again, did as he was told and allowed the Doctor to do whatever he wanted.

A quick beep later and the Doctor was finished.

“Alrighty, lets see what we have here.” Dr. Lester went back to his computer and enhanced the photos.

“It looks like you have a tiny fracture.” He circled the area with his finger. “Nothing to big, do you want to be prescribed any pain killers?”

“No.”

“I’ll get you another wrist brace and you should be free to go after we schedule your next appointment.”

The Doctor walked out of the room and quickly came back with a smaller, thinner brace. “This is a better model, it has memory foam on the inside so it will fit to the form of your wrist better than this bulky thing.” he took Anti’s old brace and tossed in the trash right before he put the new one on Anti.

Anti had to admit, it was way more comfortable that Veronica’s and it actually looked decent.

“Your next appointment will be exactly 3 weeks from now. Depending on how well it’s healed you might be able to take the brace off.”

“Okay.” Anti made a mental note and hopped off the counter.

“Oh, before you go, I need to take your height and weight. Please step right outside please.”

They walked out into the hallway and over to a scale. Dark got up from his seat and followed them.

“So how bad is it?” Dark asked the doctor.

“It’s just a slight fracture, nothing major.” Dr. Lester answered and tapped on the metal scale.

“Please take your shoes off and step onto the platform.”

Anti kicked his old sneakers off and stepped onto the cold metal. Almost immediately a number flashed onto the screen.

110lbs

“You are slightly underweight Mr. Mcloughlin.” The Doctor noted and wrote it down on his clipboard.

“I’ll make sure the palace chiefs are aware and that his meals are modified.” Dark said looking at the doctor. “What do you recommend his daily intake be?”

“I can take care of  _ myself _ Dark.” Anti interrupted. He didn’t like being treated like some dog they just rescued from the street, especially from Dark.

“My apologies.” Dark said. Surprised he was actually called by his name and not his title. “I just want to make sure all my guest’s needs are accommodated for.”

“He should be eating 3  _ full  _ meals a day with maybe a light snack in between.” Dr. Lester said with a light bow of his head.

“Thank you, now if you excuse us Dr. Lester. Anti and I are going to continue our lunch in the royal suite.” Dark grabbed Anti’s hand and walked him out of the medical wing.

“I don’t need your help.” Anti pulled his hand away.

“I’m just trying to be polite...” Dark defended himself “...and you’re not going to wear that black hoodie for 3 months. I have some extra clothes in my room you can try on since you keep refusing the wardrobe department.”

“Fine.” Anti gave in. ‘But if he expects me to wear a suit I’m leaving’

The royal suite was on the top floor of the palace, fully modernized and looked  almost spotless. The only way to get there was by an elevator that only opened if you had a royal pass. 

The suite had a very open floor plan. Anti was very surprised that Dark (A man who valued privacy and security), would have a window cover an entire wall with a sliding glass door that led to a wooden balcony.

“Usually only royalty are allowed up here, but I ordered for the rest of our food to be brought here by a few maids while you were with the doctor.” Dark said gesturing over to the table full of food at the dining room table. “Please sit down and make yourself comfortable.”

Anti didn’t see any point in refusing, he was pretty thirsty from all this walking around anyways. He sat down and poured himself a glass of water.

“I’m planning on moving you and Jack up here after the guest bedrooms get fully renovated.”

Anti spit out the water he was drinking. “What?!”

“Jack is technically royalty now and you are his brother so you both have access to anything you want in the royal suite. I’ll hand you your ID cards tomorrow.”

Fuck. He was basically going to be living with the King of Iplier. His secret was going to be harder to keep than he originally thought. But as long as he wore a shirt at all times he should be okay.

“Everything alright?” Dark asked, noticing Anti’s expression change.

“Yeah, I just don’t think it’s necessary if we’re just going to leave in three months.” Anti said with confidence. Taking a piece of cooked chicken from the plate in front of him.

Dark smirked… and oh god it was sexy.

“Don’t get to confident. I know I’ll convince you to stay. I’m a very persuasive person.”

“Try me.” Anti dared him knowing full well that he shouldn’t. The tension in the room shifted to something that was borderline sexual. This was starting to get dangerous

He was grateful when Mark and Jack came running out of the elevator.

“Hey Dark! Can I show Anti my room? He’s never seen a telescope before!” Mark asked, and just like that the tiny bit of sexual tension disintegrated from the room.

“Only if Anti allows it.” Dark took a scoop of rice and plopped it on his plate.

“Please Anti!” Jack begged.

“Fine, but I want you to behave and don’t break  _ anything _ .”

Jack ran over and gave Anti a quick hug. “Thank you.”

Anti took this opportunity to ruffle Jack’s hair. “Yeah, yeah, get going.”

Once both of them were out of sight, Dark looked over at Anti with a more serious expression.

“Jack seems to be liking it here.”

“After three months he’ll definitely want to go home.”

“What makes you so sure?” Dark raised an eyebrow. “Many young boys would love to abandon their lives to live like royalty. What makes Jack different?”

“Because he understands the term, ‘blood is thicker than water’.” Anti gave Dark a hard look. “I doubt that you would understand.”

“I understand that more than you could possibly imagine.” The King’s mood shifted and the rest of the meal was eaten in silence.

 

“So we’ll be home in about three months.” Anti explained everything to Fiona on the cell phone. It was late at night and Anti decided to sit out on the balcony while Jack watched TV in his newly built pillow fort.

“Your playing a dangerous game Anti.” Fiona warned him “I heard that the King never loses.”

“I know, but neither do I.” Anti looked around to make sure there wasn’t any guards around him listening in on his conversation.“Soon Dark’s gonna move Jack and I to the royal suite.”

He heard Fiona drop her fork on the other end.

“Really?!”

“Yeah. Dark was all like, ‘well technically Jack is royalty now so you get to stay in the royal suite’.” he did his best deep voice impression of Dark.

Fiona gave a light chuckle. “Well technically you  _ both _ are royalty. You have the King’s mark on your back remember?”

“Don’t remind me. It’s going to be a lot harder to keep it a secret once I’m living with the guy.” Anti let his body weight fall onto the stone railing and sighed.

“Are you falling in love with him yet?”

“Pft, no.” Anti’s eyes narrowed at nothing in the distance. “I just made a deal with him, nothing more.”

“Fate works in mysterious ways Ant. You can’t say you’ll  _ never  _ fall in love.”

“Now your starting to sound like Vi.” Anti smiled at the thought of his friends back home. “How’s Kev and Vi doin?”

“Not so good…” Fiona’s voice became soft. “Someone robbed Kevin’s bar at gunpoint while Veronica was taking inventory.”

Anti’s eyes went wide with horror. “No…”

“There both okay. They only took a couple cases of beer and shot up a couple windows, but Kevin thought he saw Frank driving the getaway car.” Fiona kept her voice down, not wanting Sean to hear.

Anti’s vision almost went completely red. So their dead beat father was alive after all… fuck. This was the worst possible time he could make his little reappearance.

Anti cursed, “Of course that sack of shit is back when I’m gone.” he tightened his grip on the phone.

“I’m kind of nervous…” Fiona admitted. “Remember what happened last time he came back? What if he tries to take the car?”

“Was mom spotted anywhere?” Anti whispered so that Jack couldn’t hear him

“No, I don’t think so… “ Fiona replied. “I sure hope she comes back. I owe her a broken nose for the time she stole our squirrel money.”

“I know.” Anti glared at the wall in anger. “Listen, I want you to bury all the money under the house.”

“Jimmy’s already on it, I told him to put the laptop under there too.” Fiona smiled weakly. “Great minds think alike.”

“Hey Fiona? Can I talk to Jack?” Anti heard Sean ask from the other end.

“Yeah sure. Anti can you put Jack on the phone.”

“Yeah.” Anti walked back inside. “Just make sure you don’t drain the battery. I don’t know when I’m going to have opportunity to get a charger.”

He tossed the phone over to Jack. “Sean wants to talk to you.”

Jack’s face immediately turned into a giant grin and he scrambled to get ahold of the small flip phone. “Hey Sean!”

Anti watched Jack excitedly tell Sean everything that happened to him. ‘There’s no way Jack would pass up a chance to be with his brother again. This was the easiest bet ever.’

“Don’t stay up to late Jack.” Anti yawned and crawled into bed, letting his mind fall back into nothingness.

 

_ “Mom your back!” A young Anti cried tears of happiness and ran up to hug her. “I knew you’d come back!” _

_ The woman smiled and ruffled Anti’s hair. “I missed you my baby boy! Oh my gosh, you're getting to be so tall now!” _

_ “Fiona and I missed you so much! We were even saving up money to come find you!” Anti jumped up and down excitedly. _

_ “Oh really… can I see it.” She asked in a sweet voice. _

_ “Don’t you want to see Fiona first? She’s upstairs right now sleeping, but I can go wake her up.” Anti was about to run off but his mother stopped him. _

_ “No, we should let her rest. Girls need their beauty sleep after all.” His mom walked into the kitchen. “How about I make you some breakfast?” _

_ “Really?!” Anti’s eyes lit up with excitement. “Can you teach me how to cook breakfast?” _

_ “Sure. I’ll get the ingredients while you tell me all about the money you and Fiona saved up.”  _

_ “Okay!” _

_ Anti felt like the happiest boy in the world. He told his mom everything. How they got the money begging on the street, how they saved up around 200$, where they hid the money from their Dad so that he couldn’t spend it on beer. All while his mother taught him how to make an omelette with bacon. _

_ After she was done, his mother sat him down at the table and handed him the plate. _

_ “Here yeah go, eat up my little champion.” she ruffled his hair again. _

_ Anti immediately gobbled down all he could. It wasn’t as good as the food Shela made him, but it was better than nothing. _

_ His mother began humming a sweet tune. “You look a little sleepy there bud. When was the last time you had a good night sleep?” _

_ “Well I can’t sleep that much, because I have to protect the house. Sometimes bad people come at night and try to take our squirrel money.” _

_ “Oh dear, you should get some rest.” His mother lightly brushed her thumb on his cheek in a comforting manner. “I’ll take you up to bed.” _

_ “Promise that you’ll be here when I wake up?” Anti asked. _

_ “I promise sweet pea. When you wake up I’ll take you and Fiona to the park.” She kissed his forehead. “Goodnight my little trooper.” _

_ Then his mother left with all the money in the house. Anti never forget the look on Fiona’s small face when she found their money box empty. The tears they both cried. Anti walked over to mirror and clenched his small hands into a fist. With all his might he punched the mirror, cracking it in the middle. _

 

Anti quickly woke up after that and quietly rolled out of bed. He walked out onto the balcony and looked out at the slightly lit sky. A sliver of sunlight could be seen over the horizon of forest. He leaned on the railing and sighed.

As much as Anti hated it. He couldn’t stop the tear that ran down his cheek down and fell off the balcony to the ground.

 

King Dark was woken up from his sleep when he felt the sudden feeling of sadness. He immediately recognized it as his soul mate’s emotion. He yawned and rolled his body out of bed. It pained him knowing that somewhere his soulmate was feeling sad and he could do nothing about it.

Looking out of his window he noticed that the garden lights were still on, maybe a quick walk around would calm him down.

He went down to the first floor and just as he was about to take a step outside a small drop of water landed on his foot. Dark looked up at the barely lit sky. There were no clouds. How could it be raining?

He walked out a bit more and looked straight up. He noticed a figure standing on the balcony right above him. Why was someone up this early in the morning?

Upon closer inspection he noticed that it was Anti. Another tiny drop of water fell down by his feet.

Was Anti… crying? Should he do something?

“Hello?” he shouted, hoping that Anti could hear him.

Anti’s head shot down and he quickly rubbed his eyes. The second he noticed Dark standing right below him he quickly ran back inside and slammed the door shut.

Dark sighed and ran a hand through his hair. As much as he didn’t like Anti, he knew he had to keep trying… for his brother’s sake he would try to get along with him.

  
  



	6. Chapter 6

“You have got to be fucking kidding me.” Anti’s jaw dropped when he walked into his new room. Dark was busy at a meeting, so Julian had to escort Anti to the newly refurbished bedroom in the royal suite. Meanwhile Jenna took Jack by the hand and started skipping down the hallway in excitement. Anti didn’t mind, he allowed himself to trust her a little.  
Anti wasn’t comfortable with Jack having his own room right next to Mark’s, but his objection died in his mouth when Julian opened the door to his room.  
It was huge, definitely an upgrade from their previous living area. It had a large king size bed up against the wall and in the center of the room sat a billiards table with beautiful red finish. There was a giant flat screen TV hanging on the wall right in front of his bed, with a fish tank right by the door. After a second glance Anti realized that the fish were glow in the dark.  
The whole room was like Anti’s teenage dream come true.  
“This door leads to your closet, which his majesty King Dark has fully stocked with extra clothes.” Julian opened the door to a beautifully lit walk in closet with cherry wooden flooring. “There’s a control panel on the inside that opens up the shoe compartments and some more accessories on the inside. You’ll figure it out pretty quickly.”  
‘Who the hell needs all this crap?’ Anti thought, still stunned speechless. There was no way Anti could get use to all of this. It was just so… extra.  
“Over here we have your own personal bathroom, stocked with everything you’ll need. Don’t worry about keeping it clean or buying new products, a group of maids will come by twice a week to clean and restock everything.”  
Anti walked into the bathroom and noticed another door next to the white marble bathtub. “What’s this go to?” He asked as he opened it.  
“That would be your shower room. There’s a shelf to your right that has shampoo and conditioner.” Julian explained  
“A what now…” Anti couldn’t help but gawk. Who needed a whole room to shower?!  
“I’ll let you get settled in.” Julian bowed his head slightly and walked out. Leaving Anti alone.  
Anti was still off in his own little world, just completely shocked at everything that was happening in a short period of time. He walked out of the bathroom and into the closet.  
Anti had to admit that some of the clothes Dark picked out for him actually looked decent. He grabbed a long sleeve white shirt from the hanger and looked at it. It didn’t look that expensive, so he felt comfortable enough to try it on. He took off his black hoodie and sniffed it. Yup… he definitely needed a change.  
Suddenly Jenna just opened the door and came walking in “Hey Anti, you should come check out Jack’s…..” He heard her voice trail off as she noticed the mark on Anti’s back. Her jaw hung open like a fish out of water.  
“Shit.” He cursed and tried to turn around to hide his back, but it was to late. Jenna saw his soulmate mark.  
“Your… wait a minute so… Jack is Mark’s… but your Dark’s-” Anti could almost see the wheels turning in her head and she tried to comprehend that she just saw.  
“Shhhhhhh.” Anti hushed her and quickly covered her mouth before she could say anything more. “Dark cannot know about this.”  
Jenna moved his hand away from her face “Why?” she asked confusion written all over her face. “How long have you known? Why didn’t you-”  
“Please keep your voice down.” Anti pleaded in a whisper. “Nobody can know about this. Please swear to me that you won’t tell anyone.”  
Jenna just froze in shock. “Your King Dark’s soulmate. Y-You are the Queen of Iplier.”  
“No I’m not.” Anti snapped a little on the harsh side, panic getting the better of him “Please promise me you will keep this between us.”  
“But I can’t just-”  
“Hey Jenna! Can I talk to you for a sec?” A voice called out from the main room. It only took a second for Anti to realize it was Julian, before his body could react Jenna was already pushing Anti behind a rack of clothes.  
She adjusted the hangers just in time for Julian to open the door.  
“There you are. Why are you in Anti’s closet?”  
Anti didn’t make a sound or even move a muscle. Julian was Dark’s right hand man, if he found out….  
“Oh, I was just… making sure all the shirts got transferred over without any rips. Sometimes the maids can be a bit careless.” She lied smoothly. “What did you want to talk to me about?”  
“I was wondering if you wanted to… go out for a drink tonight?” Julian put his hands in his pocket, he sounded a little nervous. “I was gonna go with a couple of buds but they just canceled on me so-”  
“Sure, just text me the place and time and I’ll… uh, meet you there.” Jenna said quickly, trying to get Julian out of the room as quickly as possible without being obvious.  
“Great.” Julian smiled “I’ll definitely text you the details later… Oh have you seen Anti? Jack’s looking for him.”  
“No, I haven’t seen him, but the second I do I’ll tell him that Jack wants him.”   
“Thanks.” Julian smiled as he walked out and closed the door behind him.  
Anti finally let out the breath of air he was holding in. He had to remember to be more careful. Jenna pulled him out from his hiding spot.  
“Why the hell are you hiding?” she asked, her eyes scanning Anti’s face for answers. “Is someone after you? Did you get threatened?”  
“No, I just…” Anti really didn’t want to be talking about his issues, especially with someone he’s known for a few days, but he didn’t have a choice. “...I don’t belong here and I need to get back to Septic as soon as possible.”  
“Why?”  
“Because, my family needs me there.I belong there. The people of Southside are the shittiest people on the planet. But there are some diamonds within the shit that makes it an okay place.”  
Jenna looked so confused. Anti sighed. “Look I don’t expect you to understand, I just need you to keep quiet.”  
“Okay, you're right I don’t understand.” She admitted “I’m sure if you just talked things out with Dark-”  
“If Dark finds out who I am, I’m never going home again. You see how protective he is with his brother, how many guards he has everywhere. Like he would even think about letting me go back to Septic, let alone the Southside.”  
“Yeah but-”  
“Please…” Anti was close to getting on his knees and begging. “Just, keep quiet about this.”  
“I…” Jenna took a minute to think things over before replying. “ I can’t promise you anything…”  
Anti’s heart dropped and for a split second felt overwhelmed with fear. Fear of never seeing Fiona or Sean again, fear of Jack growing up, fear of the expectations that would be set for him as the Queen, Fear of disappointing his soulmate, a fear of Dark-.  
“But I can say that I will only tell King Dark if it starts affecting his health…” Jenna put her hand over Anti’s. “I don’t know how this soulmate thing works, I haven’t found mine yet, but I will try to help you as best as I can.”  
Anti visibly relaxed. “Thanks.”  
“No problem.” Jenna patted him on the back.  
“Thanks, I owe you big time.”  
“Now hurry up and change your clothes before Julian comes back.”

 

Anti walked into Jack’s room and was surprised that it was actually slightly smaller than his room. It definitely looked very childlike… like something Anti would want if he was 10 years younger.  
“Ant!” Jack’s face lit up as he ran over to tackle him down.  
“Woah there tiger.” Anti used the door frame to keep himself up right, smiling down at his little brother. “You look happy.”  
“How can I not be happy?! I told Mark that I’ve always wanted a bunk bed, and he actually got me my own!” Jack pointed to his new bed with pride.  
Anti wasn’t sure how to feel about this. “Isn’t Mark like, 14?”  
“Yeah, but he makes a lot of money being on TV shows and doing tours.” Jack explained “He said he could buy me whatever I wanted.”  
“Like hell he will.” Anti grumbled to himself. Last thing he wanted was Jack becoming one of those rich kids that just did whatever they pleased.  
“I asked Dark if he could get us a phone charger, and he gave me my own phone!” Jack reached in his back pocket and pulled out the newest phone on the market.  
“What the fuck.” Anti snatched the phone from Jack so he could take a look at it. He’d only seen smartphones in magazines, he’d never actually held one in person. This must have cost a fortune.   
“It only unlocks if I put my thumb on the bottom button thingy….see” Jack put his thumb on the pad and almost immediately the phone opened up. Jack’s screen saver was a selfie he took with Mark outside in the garden.   
This is to much, Anti hardened his expression and gave the phone back.“You are to give this back to Mark by the end of the day.” he ordered in his ‘parenting’ voice.  
“Why?” Jack’s voice started to whine a little. “Mark said-”  
“I don’t care what Mark said, you’re way too young to have your own phone.” Anti crossed his arms.  
“Please Anti, I can facetime with Sean on here. Mark told me he would set it up tonight after dinner.”  
“What the hell is facetime?”  
“It’s basically a thing you download on your phone and it lets you see the person your talking to on the phone.” Jack explained “Mark said that if Fiona downloads it on the laptop that we could video call them.”  
Anti thought it over. He needed a way to talk to Fiona and right now their family flip phone was dead. This could be a good thing. “Fine, but you are to only use it to call Sean or if there is an urgent emergency.”  
Jack grinned. “I understand, thanks Ant.”  
“Now, why don’t you give me the grand tour of your royal room. Prince Jack.” Anti mocked a proper accent and bowed dramatically.   
Jack punched his shoulder playfully. “Shut up. I’m still Southside by blood.”  
Anti grinned back, he felt a surge of pride go through his veins. “That’s right. Don’t you ever forget where you come from and don’t you ever let anyone tell you otherwise… okay?”  
“Don’t get all mopy on me Ant.” Jack rolled his eyes. “I want to show you my new gaming system. Mark gave me some of his old games to try out while he studies.”  
“Alright, it’s not like I’m doing anything anyways.”  
Jack spent the next few hours teaching Anti, and for the first time in forever Anti felt relaxed. He wasn’t worried about work or putting food on the table or if they were going to be robbed at any second. It felt nice to just sit down and watch Jack play games like a normal 12 year old. ‘This is only a temporary arrangement.’ Anti’s inner voice told him.  
It won’t last long.

 

When Dark came back, Anti noticed a slight grin on his face. He didn’t like it at all. Dark was definitely up to something.  
“How do you like your new room?” he asked Anti and sat next to him on the black leather couch, getting comfortable.  
“It’s… okay I guess.” Anti replied nonchalantly. Pretending to sound like he didn’t care, keeping his eyes forward towards the TV.  
“I’m glad you like it.” Dark took off his tie and undid the first few buttons of his shirt, fully relaxing next to Anti “I wasn’t sure what you would like, so I let Jenna take over the renovation project.”  
Anti couldn’t help but let his eyes look Dark up and down. He’d seen the picture he posted shirtless dozens of times, but damn, Dark looked even better in person.  
“I was thinking later tonight I could give you and Jack a tour of the capital city. Possibly show you a bit of Iplier’s countryside.” Dark looked back at Anti, who quickly turned his head away.  
“Yeah, that would be great...” Anti swallowed nervously, not liking how close Dark was to him.  
“How’s your wrist doing? Hurting at all?” Dark moved in a little closer to inspect his hand.  
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Anti quickly pulled his arm away, feeling a slight warm feeling throughout his body. Dark frowned.  
“Why are you so against people helping you?” he asked. “From the second you landed, you have refused or tired to refuse help from… well everyone. Why is that?”  
“I don’t need help.” Anti crossed his arms. “And I don’t want Jack becoming dependant on all this… royal stuff. Mark should have never given him a phone.”  
“Well, speaking of phones.” Dark reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a wrapped box. “I bought this one for you today while I was in town.”  
Anti looked down at the box and shook his head. “I don’t want it.”  
“Well you’re going to need it to contact me in case something goes wrong, you don’t have to use it for anything else. Just promise me you won’t lose it.”  
“Fine…” Anti gave in. “...but Jack shouldn’t have one, he’s only 12.”  
“Mark got his first phone on his 10th birthday. That’s actually how he started his career, playing games on his phone and reviewing them on several media platforms. He built up his social networking and became a big influence in the gaming and entertainment industries.” Dark sounded like a proud dad talking about their kid. It made Anti want to roll his eyes and wipe that stupid grin off his face.  
“Mark was already a Prince before that.” Anti pointed out. “It’s not like it took him that much effort.”  
“What are you implying?” Dark’s eyes narrowed slightly in a small glare. “That he didn’t work hard to get where he is now?”  
Anti shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know, I’m just saying things would have been different if he wasn’t born a blue blood.”  
“And what exactly have you accomplished Anti?” Dark changed the subject and grabbed a bottle of red wine from the small wine rack right next to the couch. Anti remained quiet while he poured himself a glass of wine. The last thing he wanted was Dark to know about his… far below average past.  
“Well, are you going to answer me?” Dark pushed, taking a sip from his expensive glass. “Which school did you graduate from?”  
“I don’t have to answer you.” Anti hardened his expression. “Your not my king.”  
A loud clank echoed in the room as Dark set his glass down on the glass end table beside him. “Why must you make even the most simple conversations so difficult? I just want to get to know you. Is that to much to ask?” Dark’s brown eyes bore into Anti’s green ones. “You’re not even giving this a chance.”  
“Don’t pretend you're trying to ‘get to know me’ because you want to be my friend. The only reason why your trying to talk to me is so that you can try to convince me to stay here with Jack.”  
“That’s not true.” Dark objected. “I want get to know you so that I can help you, so that we can all be a little happier.” He sounded sincere, but Anti had trouble believing him. Dark sighed, “I don’t know what happened to you in the past, but I have the best therapists in the world that can-.”  
Anti abruptly got up. “I told you, I don’t need help.” he stormed off into his room and slammed the door.Dark sighed and poured himself another glass of wine. He could tell this was going to be a long 3 months.

 

Anti had to admit the tour was…. Beautiful. The city looked so alive at night with all the lights and the music. He looked over at Jack and saw him smiling, eyes wide with wonder and excitement.  
“Look Anti, people are cheering for us.” Jack pointed out the window to a large crowd on the side of the road.  
“Don’t worry about paparazzi. This limo has one-way windows, nobody can see inside.” Dark said to Anti. “The public doesn’t know about Jack… yet. I was hoping to plan an announcement party about a month from now-”  
“No, I don’t want Jack on any news channel.” Anti crossed his arms. “And I don’t want him all over the internet.”  
Dark didn’t push anything, but to Anti’s surprise, he also seemed to completely ignore him all together. Throughout the entire limo ride, Dark didn’t say anything to Anti. He didn’t even try to make small talk. It was almost like Anti was completely invisible. However Dark was constantly talking to Jack, explaining some national monuments and fun tourist attractions as they drove along.  
It stirred a nasty feeling in Anti’s gut.  
They stopped at a beautiful restaurant that overlooked a small lake.  
“We don’t have to worry about paparazzi coming here.” Dark said, helping Mark and Jack out of the limo. “I rented out this whole lake.”  
Anti got out on the other side of the car and slammed the door shut.  
“Uh, Sir I’m going to have to ask you to be careful with the limo door.” The limo driver said in a calm polite voice. Anti just flipped him off as he walked past the limo over to the front entrance right behind Dark.  
Dinner was great. Anti couldn’t complain about that, but Dark hadn’t even looked in his direction all night. ‘Is he… mad at me?’ Anti thought, stabbing his fork into his piece of beef. The thought made Anti feel… anxious. Did his soulmate already hate him?  
“Anti? Are you okay? Are you worried about Fiona again?” Jack broke his train of thought.  
“Of course I’m worried about her.” Anti kept his voice down so Dark couldn’t over hear. “Especially since Frank-” he stopped himself from revealing to much information. He didn’t need Jack to start worrying about their dad too.  
“Uh, who’s Frank?” Mark asked.  
Shit. Anti completely forgot Mark was there for a minute.  
“Frank’s our dad.” Jack explained before Anti could stop him.  
“I’ve never heard you talk about him before.” Dark joined the conversation, much to Anti’s dismay.  
“Well… I don’t really know him. I’ve only seen him a few times. Anti usually takes care of him.”  
‘Yeah, I take care of him alright.’ Anti had to keep himself from growling at the table remembering all the times he had to toss his sorry ass out of the house. The only time their dad ever came home was to pick up his disability check at the end of every month and maybe swipe a few things, but when the government finally caught onto his little ‘act’ they arrested him for fraud and he was thrown in jail for a few years. Anti hadn’t seen or heard of him since then… until now.  
“Well I think that’s very nice of Anti.” Dark smiled at Jack warmly. Not catching onto the double meaning behind the term “Take care of him”.  
Anti remained quiet throughout the rest of the meal. He occasionally tried to glance over at Dark to see if he could figure out what he was thinking about. But trying to read Dark’s face was like trying to read a brick wall.  
‘Dark mentioned something about being able to read my emotions’ Anti remembered, ‘But I can’t feel shit!’ he started to get frustrated.  
“Excuse me Sir.” The waiter behind Anti smiled. “Are you done with your food? I can take your dish.”  
“Can we have that boxed his food boxed in a to-go bag?” Dark asked with a warm smile.  
“Of course your highness.” the waiter bowed, taking the plate from Anti.

After dinner, Dark excitedly announced that he rented a boat out on the late. “It’ll be a fun experience.” he promised and Anti had to admit… the scene was very beautiful.  
Mark and Jack wanted to be at the front of the boat, while Dark and Anti stayed in the back. Giving the boys a little alone time.  
Dark remained silent, looking out on the open water. Anti sighed, it was now or never.  
“Dark, I need to talk to you.”  
“What is it? Are you feeling nauseous?” Dark asked turning his attention only on Anti for a moment “Jack mentioned that-”  
“No, I just need to say… I’m sorry.” Anti’s voice was almost inaudible.  
“What?”  
“I said I’m sorry!” Anti tried to sound as sincere as possible, but it came out as a yell. He wasn’t use to apologising and didn’t want to screw thing up more than he has already.  
“What for?” Dark asked.  
“I… I’m not use to.... not being in control and-” Anti paused trying to find the right words.  
“I’ve been to controlling.” Dark put the pieces together. “I apologize, my intentions were to take care of my new family and I know sometimes I can be a bit… overbearing.”  
The way Dark called him his “new family” made something in Anti flutter.  
“I’ve been rude to you all night.” Dark sighed. “I thought you wanted space and time to adjust without me trying to-”  
“It’s fine. I didn’t even notice.” Anti lied.  
“Well again, if you need anything let me know.” Dark leaned back against the metal rails. “I know you don’t want to answer person questions about your life, but if you know which career path you want to take then I can get you into some of the best colleges in Iplier, or if you’d rather have a private tutor…”  
“It’s fine, I’d rather just keep an eye on Jack while I’m here.” Anti looked over at Jack standing on the very tip of the boat. It looked like Mark and Jack were reenacting the scene from the titanic.  
‘Besides, it’s not like I’m qualified for college anyways considering I barely passed middle school.’ Anti thought to himself. He could really use a beer right now.  
“Do they have any drinks on this ship?” he asked.  
Dark grinned and held his hand for Anti to take. “Right this way M’lady.” he joked lightly.  
Anti responded by lightly slapping his hand away. “Call me M’lady again and I’ll punch your face.”

 

The next morning, Anti woke up to the sound of Fiona’s voice. “Rise and shine asshole!” her voice screeched into his ear. Anti nearly fell out of his new bed.  
“What the hell Fiona.” he groaned groggily…  
….  
… wait….. Fiona?!  
He immediately shot up and looked around the room, only to find Jack laughing holding up his phone up to Anti’s face.  
“This FaceTime thing is really something. You should have seen the look on your face.” Fiona chuckled.  
Anti rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “Fiona?” he leaned closer to get a better look at Jack’s phone. It was almost like Fiona was in the room with them.  
“Yeah it’s me.” she waved through the screen. “Jimmy just left about an hour ago to drop Sean off at school. It looks like royal life’s startin’ to soften you up Ant.”  
“No it’s not.” Anti groaned and held his head. “I was just up late drinking with Dark and got carried away.”  
“Oh my god, don’t tell me you to-”  
“No, we did not fuck Fi.” Anti rolled his eyes. “We just… talked for a bit about.”  
“About what?”  
“Why must you ask so many questions when I just wake up?” Anti flopped back down onto his soft bed.  
“Well I’m glad you guys are getting along... Ant, there's something I need to talk to you about… alone.” the tone of her voice changed and he could tell it was about something serious.  
“Jack, go get breakfast.” Anti ordered.  
“Come on Ant, I’m old enough to-”  
“Right now.”  
Jack sighed and handed his phone to his brother. “Okay, but I want my phone back when I come back.”  
Once Fiona heard the door shut, she continued talking.  
“Frank came by the house.”  
“What.” Anti’s eyes widened.  
“He actually had the nerve to break the lock on the door, come in, and take a case of beer from the fridge. I got him couple times with the bat.”  
“Good.” Anti walked with the phone to his closet to change his clothes. He set Jack’s phone on a shelf with the camera facing away from him. “But that won’t keep him out for long. Someone should be at the house at all times.”  
“Not a problem, I just got fired from my job yesterday… apparently some bitch kept complaining about me.”  
“Damn, will you guys be okay over there?” Anti asked changing into a black button up shirt and some black jeans.  
“We should be okay for a bit, at least until I can find something else. I might ask Veronica and Kevin if I can have a couple shifts at the bar. Jimmy used the last of his ‘rich family’ money to pay for new locks on all the doors and windows.”  
“Are you sure you’ll be okay? If it comes down to it I’ll-”  
“We’re fine Anti. Just focus on taking care of Jack. Don’t let him become a spoiled brat K?”  
“I won’t.” Anti promised. “Call me if anything happens.”  
“I will.” Fiona said and Anti hit the ‘end call’ button.  
His father just haaaaaaaad to show up at the worst possible time. If Anti was there he’d-  
No  
He trusted Fiona, Fiona will take care of it.


End file.
